


Mercy, Malice

by JaxtonsTrash



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blind Character, Gen, Murder Mystery, Possibly I'm still Undecided About That, casefic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26590687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaxtonsTrash/pseuds/JaxtonsTrash
Summary: His voice was small, hands pressed over his face. “She described the other boy’s face when she was screaming, about why he needed to leave, why he was in danger, and she said it was…” Adashino swallowed, the sound of it incredibly heavy. Ginko traced the line of his throat, seeing how the other man held his breath. “Never mind. No one else could see it. It sounded almost...supernatural.”Ginko hummed, pretending he wasn't bothered by the description of a horror no one else could know, a feeling and experience he knew. "Are you sure it wasn't just a hallucination?"Adashino smiled in return, but it was thin, tired. Worried. "Would it trouble you to take a look around?"
Relationships: Adashino & Ginko (Mushishi)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Between the Charts

**Author's Note:**

> ~~**this will NOT be updated until late 2020 or early 2021** , I just had to get the first chapter out of my head before it killed me.  ~~
> 
> anyway thank u for reading!! I don't normally picture Mushi-shi or its characters in a modern setting, I find it's unusually... different I suppose, with a completely different undertone that differs too much from the actual show in a lot of cases which makes it hard for me to do. And yet here I am, trying.

Ginko clutched his coffee tighter in his fingers and pressed on down the hall, wondering if he would ever be able to get the smell of antiseptic out of his skin. The three separate hand-sanitizer stations behind him said it was unlikely, but a man could continue to hope against hopeless hope, couldn’t he? _Nurses do this all day, all week,_ he chided himself, and yet he still couldn’t suppress the wrinkling of his nose at the smell, the way it put a strange taste into his mouth that his lukewarm drink couldn’t cover. He supposed most nurses had only ever been in places like these of their own free will, and such a thing didn't set their teeth on edge the way it did his own.

His visitor’s pass clicked against the buttons of his shirt where he’d clipped it, the sound of plastic hitting plastic in time with the beat of his steps; concrete, constant, something he latched onto until the sensation passed in its own time. A left-hand turn down another corridor, another handwashing station propped in the middle, and the cycle began again.

Around him faces moved by, swimming in colour and bright fluorescent lights. He could not recall how many years he had spent avoiding places like these, how many years he’d turned away and run, and the feeling of knowing he was walking these halls freely was something of a misplaced oddity in his mind. Ginko pressed his fingers harder against the side of his coffee cup, wondering if his past self would have been able to envision the place where he now stood: beside the murals painted so brightly, colours dancing in vibrant hues as he walked where he pleased. Though amid the designs he could nearly understand why people would feel settled here, with the colourful paintings running up and down walls, bold signage and positive messages in bright print taking up every available space he could see; it was the opposite of what he would expect from a place lie this. If not for the smell of cleaner and the overly-bright fluorescent lights overhead, it was almost possible to believe it wasn't a hospital at all.

Mushi danced along with the murals, and Ginko blinked them out of his attention; there was a time and a place for his work, and perhaps it was not here… or at least, not yet.

He’d had a long train ride, cell phone clutched between nervous fingers the entire trip from northern Hokkaido down to Fukoka, half a dozen words burning to the back of his eyelid from the small screen: _Please come, Ginko. I need your expertise._

It wasn’t often he received urgent messages regarding his work, especially not mid-winter. Many mushi lay dormant in the early months of the year, and though there were equally those that came with the season it was infrequent they were loud or bothersome enough to merit his intervention. 

Ginko sincerely hoped that the email was about nothing, that it was an overreaction. Something in the pit of his gut told him it wasn’t, but again-- a man could hope, he supposed. 

It was, regardless, easily that he found his destination. Bright signs lead the way, and yet another greeted him upon his arrival. He winced as he passed under a letterboard bearing text that was too familiar to him, taken from memories and a place and time not enough years past, and considered it nearly offputting how curled and bright _Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit_ was spelled out overhead. He traced the words with a rolled eye.

The reception area was no different than any other hospital unit, a nurse’s head ducked below the counter charting as the mushi-shi passed by. A half-open door and crossed fingers and Ginko managed to slip down a corridor-- it eventually opened into a brightly marked _Outpatient Care_ , where he stopped to read the sign-board designating rows of office doors and their occupants. There was another sign, written in colourful script, indicating _Visitor’s Check-In_ , a sub-menu of units below, which he winced at and turned away from. Instead he turned the other way, following a floor outlined with rainbow footprints, leading onwards down the maze and passing multiple sets of doors. There was only one he needed, and he was sure he didn’t need a second visitor’s pass for it. That thought brought him a modicum of relief.

Like every other door, the one he had been hunting for was emblazoned with vibrant text, blocked and bubbly, indicating the name of the alleged occupant and his credentials. It was written in both Kanji and the corresponding Romanji characters-- but unlike the other doors, Ginko noticed a thin metal plate to one side, inscribed in _Tenji_ and also in English Braille. Ginko allowed a smile to pull at the corner of his mouth, rolling his eye and yet completely unsurprised by the excess of it. He traced his fingers over the dots fondly, knowing what they said and yet having absolutely no idea how to read them.

He knocked on the door after a moment to collect himself, pulling his hand away from the metal plate.

As though his knock was expected, a voice from inside the room hollered back without hesitation: “I’m busy!” Then, perhaps reconsidering, “actually, come back in an hour. Unless you’re Dr. Hagiwara; I don’t have your forms done yet, leave me alone!”

A smile cracked across his face; Ginko could recognise that voice the same way he could recognise the warmth of the sun even with closed eyelids. It was as though nothing had changed at all, though months had passed since he had last heard it. “And what about me?” 

He turned the knob on the handle and nosed into the office without waiting for an answer. He looked left and right, cataloguing the small room as he waited for the person inside to accept his words:

It was a modestly-sized room, built as an office and filled like a home at once. There was a wide window at the back, and shelves lining the walls to Ginko’s left and right, and colourful books spilled from all corners-- most of them children’s tales, illustrative and bright, but there were a set of tomes on the topmost shelf Ginko was sure was medical texts, printed with dark T _enji_ letters on their spines. There was a small set of plush chairs with soft pillows tucked off near the back corner, laid out so that the sun spread them both in light. On the set of shelves nearest the chairs were baskets overflowing with textured stuffed animals, toys and brightly-coloured blankets. The very aura of the room itself was warm, so unlike the offices and evaluation rooms he had known before. 

He wondered for a moment if things might have been different if this place had existed in his memories in place of others.

Ginko turned his eye across the room to the desk, the only out-of-place thing in its dark and ornate palette, cataloguing in its chair a lone man. A single laptop was in front of him, a small bluetooth earpiece of some kind sitting haphazardly beside it. What appeared to be a tablet was teetering precariously near one edge of the desk, at which Ginko winced. On the shelves beside the desk there were curiosities, expensive and strange, carefully kept behind a glass door and labelled with embossed plates. To Ginko, these were familiar-- he had seen each, touched each, and many of them he had brought to their owner with his own hands.

The man at the desk blinked at him as he stood, as though perhaps he were waking up from a nap. His heavy glasses, ever so slightly askew, slid further down his nose as he tilted his head. The movement was slow, almost sluggish, until at once he snapped up to attention. He narrowed his eyes, nearly hidden under the mop of dark hair upon his head, and wrinkled his nose in confusion: 

“G… Ginko?”

The mushi-shi nodded and allowed himself to step fully into the room, closing the door behind himself with a soft click. “I’m certainly not Dr. Hagiwara.”

Adashino’s face broke into nothing short of a grin, all his teeth flashing and his lips curling up. “I wasn’t expecting you for another two days! What a nice surprise! So you got my email, right?”

Ginko approached the doctor, clicking his shoes deliberately on the floor, and tapped Adashino’s tablet back towards the centre of the desk. He pushed it until it was nearly flush with the laptop, safe in the middle and far away from any place it may fall. 

“You should take better care of your belongings, you know,” he chided, ignoring Adashino’s question. “They’re very breakable, these electronics.”

The doctor’s smile softened, and he leaned back in his chair. “I dropped my phone in the sink yesterday, did you know that? Full of water.”

Somehow, Ginko found this bit of news unsurprising. “I hope you had a good case for it,” he said, pushing down a sarcastic smile. Suddenly, it was as though he’d never left at all, and he were standing years back in time next to his friend, the entire world ahead of them. Things were always so easy with Adashino, as though time held still between them when they parted. “Phones are hard to replace.”

The doctor only shrugged in answer. “Doesn’t matter, phones really are just replaceable objects in the end. Everything on mine is stored elsewhere, anyway.” He closed his laptop with a loud thunk and stood deliberately, waving at the set of chairs off to his right. “Anyway, why don’t you sit down for a bit and rest? Tell me about your trip.” He walked around the edge of the desk, adjusting his dark sweater as he moved until it sat without wrinkles. “Forgive me if I have no tea to offer you at the moment, but we can pretend if you like. How’s Hokkaido this time of year?”

Ginko rolled his eye, but offered a smile despite himself. “Hokkaido is cold.” He looked down at the half-empty cup he clutched, and wondered if pretending to drink tea was a joke or not. He was about ready to accept. 

It was strange how easy it was to talk to his friend, leading the way across the room and to the chairs he’d been waved to. Ginko sank into one quickly, suddenly realising how he ached from travel and how tightly his spine had been set until he’d stepped into the room. He allowed himself to fall into the plush of the chair, the familiarity of the face in front of him, the softness of a conversation picked up from months previous.

Time passed out of itself, and Ginko was content to describe the snow, the chill, the cold beauty of the northern island and the small villages he’d been visiting. Adashino listened intently as he spoke, his lip curling every so often when Ginko spoke of some peculiarity or another that the doctor was unfamiliar with. While the trip to the north had not been anything unusual for himself, for Adashino it was a marvel worth cataloguing every detail of. 

“So the snow really never stopped, even while he slept?” 

Ginko tapped his fingers against the side of his coffee cup, tracing the excited lines of Adashino’s face with his eye. “No, it didn’t stop until he was warmed-- which was a feat in and of itself.” The mushi-shi shook his head. “He felt as though his skin were burning.”

Adashino leaned back and tapped a finger to his chin, considering. “Interesting… but you managed it, of course?”

Ginko nodded. “I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. Ahead of schedule, too,” he added. “His family was extremely supportive, as were his neighbours. The mushi clung to his grief, and their care was what helped dispel it in the end.” He paused, and then realised that there was something he’d been long meaning to ask his friend. “By the way, what was so important you couldn’t tell me in an email?”

“Oh!” The doctor jumped at his words, hands clapping down on the arm-rests of his chair as he scrambled to stand. “Yes, sorry! That nearly slipped my mind,” he confessed quickly, nearly tripping as he scrambled back to his desk. Ginko watched the way he patted his hands across the surface carefully, though excitedly, until his fingers found the tablet Ginko had moved earlier. Once he found it, he reached around until he found the earpiece on the other side of the laptop, and put it on, fidgeting with his glasses so they balanced behind his ear properly with the earpiece. “So, listen, I’ve been doing some looking around through admissions and general evaluations in my spare time. Ah, actually exactly like you’d told me _not_ to--” Adashino raised a finger, wheeling around as though he could see the way Ginko had sat up, opened his mouth, and had been about to scold, “--and I hadn’t really found anything interesting for a while, until recently. Which is funny, because I found it when I stopped looking.”

Ginko sat back in his chair and watched as Adashino navigated back towards him, turning the electronic tablet over in his hands. He sat down in his chair again and began tapping at the screen, and then nodded at last down at the tablet before going on:

“We had an admission about two months ago for a girl involved in a tram accident-- she’d broken several bones, had a severe injury to her skull, and was in a coma for nearly two weeks.”

Ginko looked at his friend, searching his face for clues. But Adashino’s expression was fixed on his tablet, fingers tapping away, scrolling through something the mushi-shi couldn’t see. He looked like a child who had found an interesting bug or rock, all the intensity in his eyes focused on undoing the thing in his hands. 

Ginko chewed his lip, watching his friend organise whatever was on the screen in front of him. “I suppose you’re about to tell me something about her waking up with a peculiar ability, like that boy who attracted the snow?”

Adashino shrugged, but Ginko saw the way he tried to hide his smile. “Perhaps. _Or_ ,” he went on, “I might tell you that she woke up and started describing things… differently. Things that sounded oddly familiar to me.” At that, the doctor turned his tablet around and handed it to Ginko. “I’d heard someone dear to me talk of things quite similar, you see.”

The mushi-shi smiled and leaned back as he took the tablet, the screen far too bright and the text impossibly large on the display. He adjusted it down as quickly as he could and scrolled to the top of the cropped document, humming as he came to realise Adashino had handed him an excerpt of a patient chart, blacked out in parts for a semblance of privacy. Ginko wondered if it even mattered; he skimmed a majority of the typing, passing over notes of body temperature, pupil reactions and abbreviations he didn’t know, but paused at the bottom of the excerpt.

“Patient reports visual hallucinations,” he read aloud, “including but not limited to shapes resembling links of chain floating in the air, paper lanterns, small bugs, specks, and rings of light. Visual field normal otherwise-- ref ophthalmology, optical nerve damage?” Ginko nearly laughed as he read, but suppressed the feeling for the moment. He scanned the bottom of the page, but it seemed to be more notes about necessary referrals, drugs, tests to order… he passed the tablet back to Adashino, sliding it onto the other man’s lap. “Familiar indeed.”

“The attending psych gave a preliminary diagnosis of organic psychosis,” Adashino said grimly, as though Ginko might understand, taking the tablet back into his fingers. “You know, from her head trauma I’m not surprised. Had I been doing the assessment myself, I might have even said the same, simply because of how sudden all these symptoms were." He paused, fingers tapping at the tablet absently, curling around it for purchase.

Ginko waited for Adashino to go on, but the silence stretched. Several long seconds passed where the man simply stared at a spot over Ginko’s shoulder, frowning. His eyebrows pinched, his lips curled, and then suddenly he tapped the tablet again and shook his head, as though brought back to life.

“So how did you find all of this out? You’d stopped snooping,” Ginko prompted. If Adashino wasn’t going to reveal anything outright, it was going to be a frustrating case to look into.

But Adashino obliged, nodding eagerly. “Actually, last week in a group therapy she punched one of my patients!” Ginko hadn't a clue why the man looked so happy as he announced this. His smile faded to something that was was knowing, and yet curious at once. Ginko wondered if the man gave the expression on purpose, a contradiction, something to ponder deliberately-set. “The best I can vulgarize is that she was concerned about this strange aura of purple around another member in the group…” Adashino tapped his chin again and leaned back in his chair. “Up until then, she’d had no hallucinations besides visual. But she was screaming about how he smelled sweet, how he had to leave and clean himself.” The doctor shrugged. “He refused to leave and she punched him."

Ginko felt himself being reeled in, and he knew soon there would not be a way to turn away from what lay before him, now that he had been given half a taste of what he was looking for. Perhaps that was what had been hidden in Adashino’s smile, he mused.

“Sweet-smelling...” Ginko sunk down into his chair and traced his eye along the colourful shelves beside him. He traced the letters on the spines, not truly reading them. “Peculiar indeed. Any chance you’d let me see the patient she assaulted?”

Adashino smiled again, thinner than before. “I’d let you, but I could lose my license.”

The mushi-shi wanted to laugh: “Oh, _please_ ,” Ginko waved his hand, despite knowing the other man couldn’t see the action at all. “You’ve just handed me a patient chart and forgot to censor her health number at the top. I don’t think you’re concerned with privacy or your license.” 

“ _Ah?!”_ Adashino sat up in his chair, eyes going wide suddenly, jaw dropping. “Did I _really_ do that?”

Ginko allowed himself to laugh at last, soft and far too gentle, and Adashino sat back at the sound of it. “No, but you’re going to have to take me to talk to the patient that’s seeing these mushi, which would probably be fine if you hadn’t handed me her medical chart earlier-- however censored,” he needled.

Adashino looked away, turning his chin and doing a very poor job of hiding the blush that ran across his cheeks. “I’m just a concerned doctor,” he tried weakly, “please be nice to me.”

Dropping his act, Ginko frowned: “You’re a bit absent-minded at times, but not stupid,” he countered. “You wouldn’t invite me all the way down from Hokkaido to look at a chart if you weren’t truly concerned. Maybe this is something you’d wager your license on.” He leaned forwards in his chair, eye fixed on his friend. "Eh?"

Slowly, the doctor’s expression turned back to him, his eyebrows pinched together and his lips thin. He looked incredibly pale, almost white next to the colours of the room around him. “I don’t know,” he said. His voice was small, defeated by something Ginko did not know. “But she described my patient’s when she was screaming, about why he needed to leave, that he was in danger in this hospital, and she said it was…” he swallowed, the sound of it incredibly heavy. Ginko traced the line of his throat with his eye, seeing how the other man held his breath while he shook. “Never mind.”

The mushi-shi winced, feeling his skin start to crawl at the tone in his friend's voice. “No one else… no one else could see what she described, could they.” It wasn’t a question. He folded his fingers across his lap, pretending he hadn’t been bothered by the image. “This is far larger than the sudden ability to see _mushi_ , doctor.”

Adashino shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath. “You’re right, this worries me. At the very worst, I’m worried this could be the start of an infection our type of medicine can’t cure. And I’m afraid, at the least, such a thing may be an actual hallucination that will be treatable, but the mushi aren’t. In any case, I’m more concerned for my patient than I am for the girl, but of course it wouldn’t hurt to have a certain someone have a talk with her..." He smiled, thin, tired. Worried. "Would it trouble you to take a look around?”

Ginko stood at those words, stretching and nodding. He was fond of how Adashino spoke so gently, and yet hidden in his voice was an obligation that couldn’t be ignored. “I can consider it,” he offered carefully. "Though you know I'm not fond of hospitals."

“How do you always sound so cool and collected?” Adashino paused, frowning. “That’s… that’s a yes, right?”

Ginko smiled at his friend, at the hope written across his expression and the confusion at once. “Buy me dinner and I’ll let you know.”

The doctor returned his smile, pulling his tablet into his hands. “Alright. The cafeteria here has some pretty cute _bento_ , if you play nice during the patient visit I might even buy you two.”

Ginko rolled his eye, but leaned forward to clap a hand against Adashino’s arm, warm and familiar. How terribly easy this was, and how easy all things seemed to start. He smiled. “Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🏥 _Tenji_ is the term for Japanese Braille. In North America, [less than 10% of legally blind adults are literate in Braille](https://www.nfb.org//images/nfb/documents/pdf/braille_literacy_report_web.pdf), and this number is shrinking every year.  
> 🏥 Around 90% of "blind" folks still have some form of sight, however limited  
> 🏥 Related to this, [fewer than 2% of visually impaired people in North America use the traditional "white cane" to navigate](https://dsb.wa.gov/resources/blind-awareness/dispelling-myths)\-- many use guide dogs, and many still use nothing at all.  
> 🏥 Useful resources from national institutes and federations for the blind and visually impaired can be found here (clickable links) :[ ENGLISH ](https://www.nfb.org) //[ FRANÇAIS ](https://www.cnib.ca/fr) // [ DEUTSCH ](www.dbsv.org)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 🏥 I feel like this is the part where I should clarify I'm not a doctor or a human medical professional but have spent my life in and out of hospitals (of all sorts) so I did my best and will keep doing my best but I am not perfect  
> 🏥 If u notice a mistake or something you'd like to point out involving accuracy or portrayal of anything, please send me a message on tumblr (username is Jaxtonstrash) or leave me a comment below!  
> This includes typos!


	2. A Professional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginko meets the girl who's been seeing the shadow of something much larger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello-hello, here's chapter 2 and here's to 2021 maybe being better than 2020
> 
> I needed a small break from my other longfic, This Has Always Been Enough-- I love writing it, but I find the emotionalism of it is much less my natural style of writing, so it takes a lot of effort. A pleasant effort, but I needed a little break from it so here we are ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶  
> 

Adashino stood and clapped his hands together, tablet sliding from his lap and to the floor with a soft _clunk_ , the case shielding it and muffling the sound. He paused for a moment to pick it up, frowning, and then waved over to the door. “Shall we, then?”

Ginko raised an eyebrow, turning to look out the window behind himself and take in the remaining light, the gold as it spread long shadows into the sky and was stretching to dusk. It gave him pause, knowing that outside the fluorescent lights and bright colours of the hospital, time was still moving. It was almost a kind thought. “It’s late.”

His friend merely shrugged. “It’s not as though she has anywhere else to be.”

Ginko wrinkled his nose. “That’s rather rude.”

Adashino lifted his shoulders again and turned, making his way towards the door without so much as waiting for his companion. “It’s practical. Visiting hours end at 7, which means her parents wouldn’t be in the ward anymore if they had come by earlier.” He paused, turning for a moment, and tucked his tablet under his arm. He smiled, falsely-bright, and tapped at a watch on his wrist, tucked just under the sleeve of the dark sweater he wore. “Right now, I’m supposing it’s around that time…”

“S _ix fifty-three pm_.” Ginko jumped as Adashino’s watch read the time, the voice mechanical but clear, falsely bright like the doctor’s smile in that moment. “ _February twenty-first, two-thousand nineteen_.”

Adashino’s grin melted into authenticity, his features softening ever so slightly. “Visiting hours are ending soon; the time is perfect,” he ushered, but once more did not wait for the mushi-shi to follow before snatching up a thin cane propped by the door and stepping out into the hall.

Ginko set his empty coffee cup down on the floor and staggered after his friend, careful to shut the office behind himself, since Adashino had failed to do so. 

“Do you have a hotel?”

“Excuse me?” Ginko fell into step beside his friend, his visitor’s pass tapping hard against the buttons of his shirt once more; this time it followed the gentle clicks of Adashino’s white cane as he tapped it on the floor in front of himself, sweeping as he walked. 

The doctor set a quick pace that Ginko had a hard time keeping up with, and yet at once it was strangely leisurely. He knew exactly where he was going, precisely where to turn, each one of his motions familiar and deliberate. The mushi-shi slid behind him as a set of nurses passed in the opposite direction, both wheeling an empty gurney, while Adashino simply continued on and paid them no heed. They nodded their chins to Ginko, who nodded back before he pulled even to his friend again.

“A hotel,” Adashino repeated, slowing his pace as Ginko drew up to his shoulder again. He tilted his head over, making sure the other man knew he was being addressed. “You know. They have rooms, beds, sometimes a shower. People stay in them overnight. I don’t suppose you booked one in advance for yourself?”

Ginko bit his lip, grimacing. He may have made an assumption or several on the train down from Hokkaido. “Not particularly, if you’d--” 

“Oh, perfect,” Adashino cut him off, perhaps pretending to not know what his friend had been about to say, and Ginko snapped his jaw shut. The mushi-shi knew that Adashino was a clever man, and when he played at absentmindedness it was done out of kindness. There was something embarrassing that came with admitting he hadn’t had enough money to spare for a hotel for an extended time, even after he’d been paid for his work in the north-- but of course Adashino knew that. He knew all of it, and spared him the shame of admitting it with an easy smile.

“I was hoping we could go out for supper after this,” the doctor went on, “and there’s a really lovely restaurant by my flat I’d like to take you to. I think you’ll need more than a hospital bento after your long train trip, anyway.” He stopped for a moment, almost abruptly, and Ginko realised they stood before a large set of locked doors labelled _Staff Only_. He’d passed them on his way in, not paying them much heed, but now looking through the thin window it made him shiver. He held his discomfort in his chest, quiet for the moment as Adashino spoke. “Of course, the train back into the city from the restaurant is about an hour, and I wouldn’t wish that on you so late at night. Would you mind staying the night with me?”

Ginko rubbed his temples, closing his eye and nodding. “You’re so wordy,” he sighed, though in his heart he was grateful for the invitation. 

Adashino shrugged, waving a small keycard in front of a box beside the doors. He did so several times, until there was a small _beep_. 

Upon hearing the unclicking of a lock, Ginko opened his eye. One of the double doors was swinging open, and Adashino passed through it quietly. The mushi-shi followed.

“So, will you join me? I can fold the towels into little rabbits if you’d like, just like the hotels.”

Ginko shrugged, pretending he wasn’t warmed by the invite and the gentle way it was presented to him. “I suppose I could,” he hummed. It was hard to not be grateful, difficult to not smile, but a small part of him didn’t want to give Adashino the full satisfaction of his vulnerability yet. “Do you still snore?”

Adashino smiled, tilting his head. “I’m not sure. You’ll have to let me know.” He paused for a moment, fixing his expression on the next set of double doors ahead of himself. 

The pair stood in what Ginko would almost consider an entryway, save for how the doors were solid and dark and only had thin windows set into them. For once, the walls were not painted around them, and were simply white. He shivered, and then flinched at his own openness.

Adashino knocked on the glass of the door; if any part of him had registered Ginko’s apprehension, his aversion, he pretended not to notice. He merely shuffled half a step closer to his friend, a small concession, as he continued to knock on the glass window, waving. “Hello! H- _ello_!" He called, but his voice only echoed in the entryway. "This is doctor Adashino! Please let me in!”

Ginko opened his mouth to say something, ask him if there was someone he was supposed to call or page, but a soft buzz cut him off and a voice spoke through a speaker nested to the side of the door: “Doctor Nakada, please use the intercom system.”

Ginko leaned over Adashino’s shoulder to peer through the small frame of glass in the door again, only to find through it there was a security station visible, at which was seated a very tired-looking woman in a dark jacket. She had a phone to her ear and was giving the door a long-suffering look.

Adashino sighed and stretched his hand over towards the speaker, beside which was a large green button labelled _Speak_. “This guard is never any fun, you know... There’s another one on day shift who usually lets me in without the formality if I can guess how many fingers he’s holding up.” 

Ginko rolled his eye and continued looking through the glass, wondering what sort of job it must be to be locked into a ward for every shift, a security table and several doors between the self and the outside world. It made him uneasy.

Adashino didn’t seem to mind, anyway.

He was pulled from his thoughts as Adashino tapped the green button, leaning towards the speaker set and away from the door. “Hello, Ito-san,” he told the speaker, “this is Adashino, staff ID 457-AP. I have a guest with me, a visiting doctor from Nagasaki. Please buzz us through.”

Ginko reeled, lip curling. “ _Doctor?”_ He hissed. 

Adashino just smiled as the door buzzed. “Please have him sign the guest register and leave any sharp objects or lighters at the desk, per protocol.” The weary woman responded through the speaker. 

Ginko twitched.

“I’m surprised you’re alright with being from Nagasaki,” Adashino mused, lips parting slyly at his friend’s reaction.

Ginko shook his head. “This is an awful idea,” he added, realising the other man probably couldn’t see the way he frowned. “You could have told the truth.”

“It’s fine; this is more fun, anyway.”

Ginko hated this idea of _fun._

The door behind them buzzed and clicked, locking loudly; the door in front of them opened, making the same loud sound in tandem. A shiver ran down his spine. Adashino stepped closer to him, perhaps in answer, and the mushi-shi leaned into the warmth.

Apart from the security desk, the ward they entered seemed very much like the rest of the hospital: filled with bright colours and illustrations on the walls. They made their way down the thin hall towards the security desk. He closed his eye for a moment to try to still the way his heart pressed hard against his ribcage, listening to the clicking of Adashino’s cane against the floor. He hated how parts of this hall were familiar, like something from a dream he no longer wanted to place in reality. There was no exit in this place apart from where he was going, and where he had come from, and the realisation seemed to make the hall smaller still.

“Ito-san,” Adashino said, stopping once he was just outside the glass case and rapping twice on the top of the desk. “How are you this evening?”

The woman at the desk, guarded by another glass window, rolled her eyes. Her fingers pulled at a small latch along the side, and the glass slid open with a _click_. “Doctor Nakada, I can’t hear you unless the window is open. Please open the window before speaking.” She tapped at a small, white sign that was taped to the side, indicating the process she verbalized.

There was a gleam for a moment in Adashino’s eyes, one that Ginko knew could mean mischief or malice. The mushi-shi wasn’t sure what to expect, and he took a step back just in case.

And then Adashino sighed, shaking his head, the mirth in his expression deflating. He slid her his ID card, clipped to a lanyard, across the space between them. “Yes, my apologies. I’ll do my best next time.”

Ginko traced the thin seam of the window, the sheerness of the glass, and wondered if Adashino could tell whether or not it was open or closed without reaching out for it. He wondered how many times his friend had had this discussion before, how many other times he’d given up.

The woman sighed, her shoulders sinking even more than they had before. She took his ID card in hand, shaking her head. “Guest register, please.” She passed a clipboard to Adashino through the window in return, mechanical.

“Nope,” he chimed, the response nearly instant, and threw the clipboard to Ginko immediately. It was completely unexpected, a stark contrast to prior, and he reeled. Ginko fumbled with the clipboard and frowned down at the set of names before him. A pen was clipped to the top, which he took and made his worst attempt at scrawling a false phone number and family name before passing it back through the window. Whatever came of this, the only person at the hospital he wanted to hear from was Adashino.

Silently, the security guard accepted the clipboard back from Ginko, trading it for Adashino's ID card again, and though she stared at him a beat too long he said nothing of it. He ducked his head and followed Adashino down the hall, chasing the doctor’s laugh as he pushed through a small turnstyle and through another set of locked doors.

So much of this was familiar, and yet terrifyingly unknown.

“I hope this isn’t too discomforting for you,” Adashino said quietly. Perhaps he heard the way Ginko had tensed up again, unsure of what to do. “If you want to leave, please just tell me.”

A hand pressed onto his shoulder, and the mushi-shi was able to shake his head. “Not yet. I’m fine.”

“Of course. I'll give you my spare door key-card tomorrow, though.” 

Ginko nodded, shoulders sinking. This man knew him without seeing, without hearing. "Thank you."

⚕️

They arrived eventually at a door that Ginko assumed Adashino knew well. It came up through the halls of the ward very quickly: rounded metal numbers screwed onto the door, and a whiteboard below. Ginko traced the lines with his eye, reading the name of the occupant _("Fujino,_ _Akiyo_ ") and the date of check-in to the ward. There was a list of groups she was participating in, and a short list of hobbies along the bottom. _Almost like some summer camp_ , Ginko thought bitterly. And yet this place was the farthest from that sort of thing he could imagine.

Adashino’s fingers curled down into his shoulders and then let up, as though the other man felt Ginko's disdain. The doctor came to stand beside him, and then reached to knock on the door. Involuntarily Ginko found himself leaning into his friend’s side, grateful for the way their arms pressed and the touch grounded him. 

“Fujino-san?” Adashino called through the frame of the door. His hand fell to the knob, nothing more than a thin crescent. “Fujino-san, may I please come in? This is doctor Nakada,” he added.

Ginko found it so strange to hear him speak as he did, so used to the man being nothing short of informal and often rude. It was unusual, he thought, for Adashino to grace anyone with any sort of title whatsoever, never mind a very young patient who likely didn't return the favour. And yet he did, and he was entirely serious as he did so, addressing her as he might address a colleague or mature adult. Ginko wondered what other strange habits Adashino kept within the hospital, and if any of them were just as endearing.

“Fujino-san, please answer me. I'm a physician here, I have some quick questions for you. Please let me know you're here." He waited, frowning, but no answer came from the other side. He sighed heavily and shook his head. "Akiyo, I’m coming in." Ginko jumped at the shift to informality, the certainty in his statement compared to what he had said seconds before. It was almost as though he had heard the other man’s thoughts. “I have someone with me.”

There was a soft _click_ as Adashino depressed a button set into the handle, and the door pushed open slowly. The room was dark, curtains drawn, and Ginko had to squint to make out the shapes inside: there was a round desk with a plant on it, two thin chairs, and a hospital bed. Off to one side there was a sliding door, perhaps leading to a bathroom. He drew his gaze back to the bed as Adashino fumbled around on the wall for the light, slapping aimlessly until he hit the switch and the fluorescent overheads lit up the room.

Ginko blinked in surprise as the room fully registered in the light, empty walls a stark contrast to the colours in the hall outside. He thought of the entryway again, and its blankness. The bed was made with white sheets, a grey blanket, and in it sat a small girl, slouched and looking down at her own lap catatonically. She couldn’t have been more than twelve.

“Hello Akiyo-san,” Adashino said. He fiddled around with his tablet and cane, eventually propping the latter against his own hip and pulling the former in front of himself with both hands. “May I speak with you for a few minutes?”

The girl looked up, eyes dark, tired, and shrugged. “Sure. You’re going to anyway.” Then, after a brief second, as though realising where she was once more, she frowned. “Who are you?”

Adashino barked a laugh, the sound of which made Ginko jump. “I’m a doctor here, no need to worry. You can just call me Adashino; I work alongside doctor Sakamoto.”

“I didn’t mean it to be funny,” the girl, presumably one Fujino Akiyo, scowled. Her young face pinched severely with disdain.

Adashino’s expression softened. “I apologise. It’s rarely I have patients asking me who I am in such a tone; I rather enjoyed the surprise.”

The young girl wrinkled her nose at him. “You have patients? You don’t look like a doctor.”

At that, Adashino laughed again. Ginko traced his eye over the other man’s silhouette, trying to understand what it was Akiyo doubted: while Adashino was not wearing a white coat, he had his ID badge on a lanyard around his neck. He was wearing leather shoes, tailored slacks and a black, high-necked sweater not too dissimilar to one the mushi-shi himself owned-- although Adashino's was doubtless many thousands of yen more expensive. Ginko chewed his lip and wondered what the girl had been expecting-- probably the white coat, he figured. He could barely remember being twelve, never mind the ways he had thought when he had been.

“I assure you, Akiyo-san, that I went to medical school. They gave me a paper and everything.”

Ginko snorted, unable to help himself: “Did you check if it was a participation certificate?”

Adashino scowled at his friend. “Very funny; I graduated with honours, thank you for asking.” The man didn’t see, but Ginko noticed how Akiyo put her hands over her mouth, hiding a smile. “Anyway, Akiyo-san, I’m sorry if I disappoint you but I am, in fact, a medical professional. I’m here for medical reasons.” 

“I don’t want you as my doctor,” the girl told him; despite the half a smile she had on her face, her eyes were entirely serious. “I never asked for you to be here.” She settled back to sit against the headboard of her bed. It was only then that Ginko noticed that she had one arm in a sling, and a soft brace around her neck. 

Ginko turned his gaze between her and Adashino several times, wondering what his friend would say. “That’s fine-- I don’t want to be your doctor, anyway.” The words were petulant, but Adashino spoke them with a great seriousness in his voice. “I just have a few questions to ask you, and then I’ll be on my way.”

Ginko started once more as the girl looked at him, young eyes surprisingly sharp in their stare. “Who’s he?” she asked, and turned her anger at the mushi-shi.

“Just a friend of mine,” Adashino said, too quickly for Ginko to answer instead; it was strange soft his answer was, given how fast the words left his lips. “He’s here to help me with the questions I have; his name is Ginko. I hope you don’t mind.”

Akiyo wrinkled her nose. Ginko could slowly see her sinking out of her earlier state, and settling back into herself. He watched her follow some mushi along the ceiling with her eyes, before she realised what she was doing and drew her expression back to Adashino and corrected her posture. “Doctor Sakamoto asked me questions earlier.”

“Of course she did,” Adashino said, tone even and careful. He took a few steps forwards and then stopped abruptly; Ginko realised he was likely looking for a chair, but didn’t want to ask where it was. Instead, he drummed his fingers on his thighs, one hand doing the same on the back of his tablet and simply stood awkwardly where he was. “Questions are a normal part of diagnosis, and more importantly, in treatment. It’s also important to have discussions from other points of view, to make sure everything is understood as it should be by everyone involved.”

Ginko pulled out one of the two chairs near the desk and slid it across the floor, allowing the legs to drag as it skidded. Adashino nodded gratefully and took a few steps over to it, seating himself and motioning for Ginko to follow.

“Doctor Sakamoto said I’m crazy,” Akiyo frowned.

Ginko sat down in the other chair, watching how Adashino’s face grew despairing, and then softened. “I think you’ve misunderstood doctor Sakamoto’s words-- again, an important reason we should go over some things.” His lips were thin, and the mushi-shi could see the man fighting with the sort of language he wanted to use. Adashino went on, perhaps far too slowly, each syllable chosen, careful, measured. Clinical: “You’ve suffered a severe head injury and have just recovered from a coma. At times, this can cause you to see things or hear things you don't remember from before. You're probably having some difficulty adjusting back to everything around you, and it’s perfectly normal--”

“I’m _not_ , though!” Akiyo snapped. Her words were sharp, and her face was harsh, holding as much anger in its features as any twelve-year-old could. Ginko would have been afraid had she been larger, had she been older, and had her arm not been in a sling. She was fierce. “I’m _fine._ ” Her eyebrows drew down. “You said other views are important. My view is important, too. And my view is that I’m fine. I want to go home.”

Adashino smiled, but Ginko saw the way the corners of his eyes twitched; had he been anyone else, had he not known this man for years, Ginko may not have seen the reaction at all. How he tried to hide his upset and uncertainty behind a grin. “Other views _are_ important, I did say that. Actually,” he said, sitting back in his chair, “that’s why I’ve brought my friend. He has a view, as well, and it’s one I would like you to hear.”

“Hello,” Ginko said; he was unsure if he should say anything more.

“Hello,” Akiyo echoed-- her tone matched his, and yet underneath it was a resentment the mushi-shi wasn’t quite sure he’d earned yet. There were vestiges of her outburst in the syllables.

“Adashino said you were seeing some things others couldn't,” he tried. He folded his hands across his lap, unsure of how to look relaxed in this place. While Adashino sat beside him, made of flesh and blood and all of the familiarity of something he might call _home_ , Ginko nearly felt like he was floating, lost, strayed from himself. The blank walls were so terribly cold, shadows appearing where they shouldn’t be. He hated that he recognised himself in the position where Akiyo sat, how he saw the shape of his past in the shadows under her eyes. “I was wondering if you could describe them to me, these things.”

Akiyo looked back to Adashino, eyes frantic. “Is he a doctor, too?” It was ironic, Ginko considered, how the girl sought comfort and certainty in the man she’d rejected not moments before. Adashino had that effect on people, and he had it without even meaning to: his very spirit took the shape of solace.

Ginko didn’t give his friend a chance to answer the girl. “I’m a mushi-shi,” he said. Of course, it would mean nothing to her, but it was enough to have her expression return to him. The panic was still there, but there was a thin veil of curiosity, as well. “I see things that some people can’t, and I think you can see them as well. They are called _mushi_ ,” he went on, “and I make my living studying them.”

Akiyo looked between Ginko and Adashino, the expression shifting on her face from panic to confusion to disbelief.

“There’s one right there that looks like a sea-star,” Ginko tried. He pointed to a small creature floating absently by the desk, very much shaped like a sea-star. Its appendages wiggled as it spun. “It’s completely harmless-- most of them are. They live in between every space we can and cannot see. They’re a form of life so close to energy itself that very few people are capable of feeling them, never mind seeing them. Having hit your head as hard as you did may have caused you to register them now, even though you hadn't been able to before.”

Akiyo’s eyes began to widen as she took in what he was saying, looking between Ginko and the desk-mushi and back to him again. Her mouth opened several times, but no words came out.

“My current favourites are the ones that look like lanterns,” he added, pointing at a very small _mushi_ drifting just over Adashino’s head. He found the hum from that variety very relaxing, almost like small bells. For a moment he let himself be taken in by them, allowed himself to forget where he was sitting. “These particular ones drift with the breeze, and get their energy from sunlight.” He pressed his lips together. “I’m not sure how this one got inside, but it seems content to stay.”

Akiyo finally seemed to understand how her tongue worked again. “Can… can you see them too, doctor...?”

Adashino smiled. “I can’t really see much of anything very well, I’m afraid.” He shrugged, tapping the edge of his cane that he had propped on the chair beside him. "I don't believe mushi come in high-contrast versions with described audio," he added, smiling thinly. "Ginko tells me about them all the time, though-- it was how I recognised what you were describing to the other doctors.”

“Oh,” Akiyo said, the syllable lilting down. “But I'm not… so I’m really _not_ hallucinating?” She asked quietly. There was a strange relief, the sort that followed a masked self-doubt that Ginko wished the girl didn’t know. And yet there was a disappointment in her words, as though the reality she faced was somehow just as bad as the one she had been in before.

“I don’t think so, no. If you are, then I am as well.” He offered a small smile. “In your case, what you are able to see is very real.”

Adashino drummed his fingers on the top of his tablet. He seemed satisfied with something, though what it was for the moment Ginko didn't dare ask. “I’ll leave you two for a bit, but Akiyo? Many parts of your therapy lessons here can be beneficial to you, that's why you're in them. It would be appreciated if you took the time to make an attempt or two to understand that while you’re here. It’s not just a game; people’s experiences and reactions are very real and very important.”

Ginko reeled back; there was a dark aura around the man, a menace hidden in the gentle tone he used that made a shiver run down the mushi-shi’s spine.

“And be nice to those leading your groups, Akiyo, or I’m afraid we’ll have to have a chat about it.” Adashino smiled, flashing teeth behind thin lips, and stood. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt your evenings more than necessary, of course, so I do hope you’ll consider what I’ve said. I'm _not_ your doctor, remember, so play nice. I'm not obligated to be as forgiving as doctor Sakamoto is.” In three short strides he was back to the door, cane in hand as he stepped into the hall. The strange emotion about him dropped, fading back into the warmth Ginko knew well and wanted to lean back into. “Anyway, I’ll be just outside if you need me. Bye, now!”

Ginko turned back to the girl, so small in her hospital bed, blinking as she tried to process what was around her. The lights flickered overhead, and he felt himself swallow as he tried to grab hold of time again; part of her expression he was undoubtedly sure he wore himself.

“I… I punched at one of the therapists,” Akiyo said quietly.

“Oh,” Ginko answered, unsure of what else he could offer.

“Yeah.” The girl shifted uncomfortably, twining and untwining her fingers into the fabric of the sheets she had over her lap. “I re-broke my collarbone fighting with him.” The fingers hanging out of her sling wiggled.

Ginko sat back in his chair, sighing and curling his hands into themselves, not meaning to mimic Akiyo but ending up doing so nonetheless. There was something about this girl that was so familiar it nearly hurt; he wanted to laugh at it, perhaps to cry. “I broke my fingers punching at an orderly,” he confessed, looking down at his lap. “He moved, and I hit the wall instead.”

“Ah?” Akiyo sat up in bed, the arm not in the sling reaching out to the bed rails to help pull her forwards.

Ginko shrugged and allowed himself a smile. “It was a long time ago. I was angry. I shouldn’t have been angry.” He paused. There were many things he wanted to change, but he couldn’t. It was too many years passed to dwell on it, anyway.

“I’m angry too, sometimes,” Akiyo said. “Mostly when they all say I’m lying. I don’t want to be angry, but it’s hard.” The girl frowned down at her lap. “Well, maybe they don’t say _lying_ ; they say that what I’m experiencing and what’s happening around me are different, but that’s not true. My experience _is_ real. I hate that they tell me it’s not.”

Ginko recognised in what she said a reflection of Adashino’s own words: _People’s experiences and reactions are very real and very important_.

“They probably don’t mean it the way you think they do,” he offered. “The staff here know you must be afraid, you must feel lost. You’re seeing things they can’t, and they assume that’s frightening.” He allowed himself to lean back into his chair, feigning a calm he was struggling to manage. “They want you to understand the difference between your reality and theirs, thinking it might help you.”

Akiyo glowered down at her lap. “It doesn’t.” 

Ginko nodded. “No, I imagine it wouldn’t help right now.” He wasn’t sure what he could offer to her, having a hard time processing where she sat himself. He had been there once, years ago, and his experience had been entirely different. “About helping, though… Adashino has asked a favour of me, and I may need your help with it. Would you mind?”

For a young girl who had just come out of an accident, the mushi-shi was surprised at how level her head was on her shoulders. “Depends what kind of help you need.” Her stare towards him was curious, but skeptical at once. 

Ginko tapped his chin absently. “Adashino said you’d punched one of his patients, not just a therapist. Tell me why.”

Immediately, the girl turned her body away and fixed both her eyes solidly at the foot of her bed. “He was rude.”

The tips of her ears were pink, the only part of her not washed out by the fluorescent lights overhead. Ginko felt himself smiling despite his best efforts. “Please don’t lie. Was there something wrong with him?”

Akiyo slouched back against her headboard, sinking into the bed. “Not _him…_ there was... “ She pinched her eyebrows. “Maybe I _am_ imagining it. Can…” she swallowed. “Can these _mushi_ be purple? Can they be scary?”

He liked how deeply she was considering what she said, but at the same time Ginko wished she would simply say things without worry. He knew what he was looking for, what he wanted her to tell him, but it was difficult for him not to lead her. “Sometimes. And their decay products can be; they have a strange smell sometimes, too. It depends.”

This made the girl’s stare darken, but her eyebrows shot up. “ _Decay_?”

“Yes,” Ginko said, realising then that he perhaps owed her an explanation. He’d always been told he was bad at offering those, despite how he tried his best. He was often described by clients, and also by Adashino, as _cryptic._ “When a mushi dies, it leaves behind part of its life essence, which falls into decay-- some people can even smell it, the way you can smell grapes rotting when they become overripe. This… essence, we mushi-shi call it _fuki._ It’s a byproduct of dying energy,” he considered, “and so it’s not truly _alive_ in the way you could consider mushi to be. It’s a phenomena, but it can still be dangerous; coming into contact with it can make you very ill.”

Akiyo seemed to consider this for several seconds, which then stretched into several minutes. At last, the girl looked over at him, expression as heavy as it could possibly be for such a young face. “Can it be cured, if someone touches it?”

Ginko nodded. “Yes. The toxicity is relatively easy to reverse.”

This seemed to make Akiyo relax, her shoulders drooping visibly at his answer. “I… The boy I hit had it all over him, this purple stuff. It was all over his neck and down both of his arms. It was like sludge,” she explained. Then, she paused and looked straight at Ginko, eyes wide. “Are you here to cure him? Is that the favour doctor Adashino asked you for?”

He couldn’t help but smile at her, the hope and innocence in her question contagious. “It might be. I want to know if there’s more to it, though, before I do anything. _Fuki_ can be dangerous at the best of times, and if I don’t deal with all of it there’s a chance it can come back and become worse. I have to investigate further before I administer any treatments.”

“So… you’re like a detective-doctor?”

Ginko wanted to laugh at her words, but she spoke them with such sincerity he held himself back; he didn’t want her to think he was mocking her, the way she had with Adashino earlier. “Yes, I think that’s very close to what I do.”

She looked down at her lap, and then back up at him again. “Can I… can I help?” Her eyes were shockingly bright. “Since I can see all of this, too? Is there a way I can help you?”

The mushi-shi considered this-- he wanted to say _no,_ do take care of it alone, but she was already involved. Akiyo had been the first red flag in it all, and putting her on the sidelines would be painful for her, Ginko considered. As he looked her over, catalogued her small shoulders and her tired eyes, suddenly filled with a brightness he knew he didn’t have the heart to smother. In the shadow of her silhouette he saw a part of himself, and Ginko found himself unable to turn his back.

He would hate to leave her behind, sitting in a world she had only just begun to process. It hurt to think about.

“Give me a moment,” he told her, and stood from his chair. It screeched as it pushed back against the tiles, and the mushi-shi winced at the sound.

He made his way back to the door, and found it was not entirely shut-- there was a strip of light leaking in from the hall, and all it took was a gentle pull on the crescent handle for it to open all the way. 

Outside, Adashino was seated on the floor and bobbing his head, tapping his fingers absently on his knees as he undoubtedly was playing some audio or another into the small earpiece he wore. Ginko tapped him on the shoulder and the man startled, tablet bouncing from his knees and onto the floor. His thick glasses slid off his nose and landed on his lap.

Adashino stared down at them for a long moment before turning his face to Ginko, eyebrows raised. “Are you done already?” He fumbled around and settled his glasses back on his nose, picked up his tablet, and removed his earpiece. It was all so smooth, the very opposite of moments before. The doctor stood and brushed himself off, hair still askew but possessions tucked tightly in his hands.

Ginko shrugged. “I wanted your opinion on something.”

Adashino smiled, thin and nearly knowing. “Oh, _my_ opinion? What is it?”

“Would Akiyo be able to come with me while I investigate?” He felt nearly stupid asking, trying to imagine himself walking through the halls with the young girl at his side, wrapped in casts. “How... how sturdy is her condition?”

Adashino put a hand to his chin, frowning. “I’m not sure she should go with you, but not because she’s feeble.” He removed his hand from his face and shoved it into the pocket of his slacks. “She’s supposed to be accompanied by a hospital staff member when she leaves her room and I’d hate to get either of you in trouble. I already lied once and, well. You know how that goes.”

“ _You’re_ a hospital staff member,” Ginko pointed out.

Adashino frowned at him, his expression showing he had clearly expected that answer and wasn’t fond of it. “I have a job to attend to, you know.”

“Your hours are part-time,” the mushi-shi answered. “It wouldn’t be for long; I think she needs the change in pace.”

"I need the spare hours just as well." Adashino’s eyes traced over him; despite how Ginko knew the man couldn’t really see him clearly, the effect was eerie. He felt as though his friend was looking through him, through all the walls and doors and mazes of his self. 

“I’ve never been here involuntarily,” Adashino finally admitted, turning away, “but I have a lot of patients tell me it’s easy to get bored, even with all the groups and lessons. Some tell me if they weren’t having issues already, they’d get them by simply being here for too long-- although I’m not sure how much of that I can believe, it’s not an uncommon narrative.” He frowned down at the floor, and then sighed. His entire body heaved with the motion, the reluctant admittance he followed it with: “I suppose she could use the stimulation of a project like this... something to keep her mind busy for a while. Let me know what your plan is, and I’ll accompany her as best I can. I have clinic hours tomorrow morning, but my afternoon is free.”

Ginko nodded. “Thank you.”

The doctor rolled his unseeing eyes. “Don’t mention it.”

Adashino turned and leaned against the wall as the mushi-shi slid back into Akiyo’s room. The girl was sitting up board-straight in her bed, hands on her lap, smile wide. 

Ginko nodded to her. “Please get plenty of rest tonight if you can-- you and I will start looking around first thing tomorrow morning.”

As Akiyo grinned back at him, Ginko felt the walls of the room widen, open; if only a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⚕️ A lot of this is me drawing from my own memory (not of seeing mushi, obviously, I fucking wish) so not all of this is accurate to-date wrt hospital wards and design. I don't plan on heading back and being Formed any time soon, so memories from >5 years ago will have to do to sculpt this story. Please let me know if there is anything I ought to change.  
> ⚕️ Giving Adashino a last name was the most awkward experience of my entire life someone absolve me of this please  
> ⚕️ [Click for a photo of the doorhandle on Akiyo's room that I was trying to describe lol](https://cdn.mysagestore.com//380340b6a53e10af3858244e05478075/contents/TSMRXA/thumbnail/big_TSMRXA.jpg) ~~I wish I could give an Image ID but that sort of... was what I tried to do in the text and failed....~~
> 
> ⚕️ Come talk to me on tumblr by [ clicking right here](https://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com)  
> ⚕️ As always, useful resources from national institutes and federations for the blind and visually impaired can be found here (clickable links) :[ ENGLISH ](https://www.nfb.org) //[ FRANÇAIS ](https://www.cnib.ca/fr) // [ DEUTSCH ](www.dbsv.org)


	3. Another Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends I'm mostly kind of not sort of deceased 
> 
> man it's like day 16 of this year and I hate it already (yo holla)
> 
> (I owe a few thanks to some tumblr friends, @eggbreadboi, @piathegrouch and @lordofthegauntlets for proofing like 3 seperate versions of the first part of this chapter. y'all save my life)

The doctor that accompanied her was strange, but not the interesting kind of strange Akiyo had been hoping for. She’d been hoping for the white-haired man, Ginko, and the spaces between his cryptic explanations. She’d liked the sound of his voice, the ease with which he spoke and the calmness he seemed to carry with him. The certainty in his words, but more than anything the fact that he could see what she could. She liked it a lot.

This dark-haired doctor was exactly the opposite. How was it the two were supposedly friends?

Ginko was calm and collected, his words measured, and it had seemed to Akiyo in the hours they’d spoken that he wasn’t one to waste words. He decided carefully what to say and how to say it, and only offered as much as she asked for in answer. This doctor who trailed after her was not that at all, and Akiyo was starting to get annoyed.

She wanted to go back to her room and listen to Ginko again.

Being a _mushi-shi_ sounded interesting, and if Akiyo were honest with herself, it sounded quite like something out of a movie or a book. She wanted to hear more about it, listen to whatever stories she’d be able to hear, but that time had been cut short in the name of something else.

The afternoon was passing slowly, the map she was writing written in single paces at a time: with one leg in a large walking-cast, she staggered alongside the dark-haired doctor at the best pace she could manage, clinging to her wheeled IV stand as she walked around the psychiatric wing in the shadow of this stupid manl. If anything, though, he was following her and not the other way around, and it was arduously slow. Anyone who passed them by gave them a wide berth.

Akiyo had half expected, if she were honest with herself, to begin writing her own sort of adventure the evening before, upon hearing Ginko’s words. The things-- _mushi--_ she saw floating by were incredible, and they made the most relaxing sounds as they drifted: like soft bells, or chimes, and sometimes a pleasant hum or tinkle. Now that she could understand what it was she was seeing, she’d rather hoped even more things would change for the better as this had.

But oddly, she found, things didn’t. She was still stuck in a bed with an IV drip, returning to a room with rounded edges and overly-bright lights at the end of every appointment, trip or meal. She was surrounded by people she didn’t know, and people she didn’t _want_ to know. And none of them seemed to understand the magic around them, or if they did, they didn’t seem to care.

It was strange, being surrounded by magic, and yet feeling so incredibly alone. So unable to share. How long had Ginko lived like that, she wondered, in a world that was far too vibrant to be able to share with someone else in a way they could _truly_ understand?

Her wheeled IV stand clicking as she limped along, accompanied by another sort of soft, rhythmic tapping, gave her an answer without words. She wondered if she’d ever have anyone like that, a friend who would trust her implicitly and stay by her no matter where she went-- she didn’t know what that was like, but in the spaces between her steps she found herself wanting it desperately. Her only visitors in the hospital were her parents. The loneliness hurt.

“How… how did you two meet, Adashino-sensei? You and Ginko?”

The doctor tilted his head towards her, eyebrows rising as though he were surprised she would speak to him, never mind ask a question. “In a hospital, actually,” he said. And then, so unlike what Akiyo had surmised of him, he said nothing more.

“When will we see him again?” She asked.

This gave the doctor pause, again. Akiyo wasn’t sure why that was. “In a few hours. Why? Do you see something?”

Akiyo studied his face, finding it unusual how he seemed to look past her and not at her, but saying nothing of it. A lot of the other doctors looked straight at her when they talked, into her eyes, and it made her uncomfortable. Like they were judging her, or trying to see what she was seeing so vividly, and act like they cared. But Adashino didn’t do that. She wondered if he made that choice deliberately or not.

“No,” she told him slowly. “I just… I...”

“You like Ginko,” the doctor finished. “You miss him.”

Akiyo glowered at the truth he spoke for her, though she wasn’t sure why. She stared angrily at the pattern on his knit sweater, not wanting to meet the doctor’s eyes as she felt the back of her neck turn red. It was a dumb pattern, she thought, with stupid little rainbow fish stitched all along the hem, and he was a dumb doctor for wearing it.

“I thought you might,” he hummed in answer to her silence. He looked pleased about what she said, and Akiyo wanted to be angry at him for it even more than she already was. 

She frowned harder at the hem of his stupid shirt. 

“He has that effect, doesn’t he? It’d be nice if he were here. But perhaps another time.” He stopped walking, and Akiyo stopped along with him, leaning into her IV stand and taking as much weight as she could off her walking boot. “I sent him down to Diagnostic Imaging, so it might be a while longer. Would you mind if we sat for a bit?”

Adashino’s head was tilted at her in a way that made her want to be angry with him-- like he would take her answer seriously, regardless of what she said. Did she want to sit? Then he would sit with her. If she wanted to walk, even though she was tired, she knew he wouldn’t scold her for it.

Akiyo mumbled something that was neither a yes nor a no, but rather the only sound she could manage in her annoyance. This doctor spoke so softly to her, so sincerely… she wanted to hate it. He spoke to her in a way that made her feel like her answers may matter. That even something as benign as confirming if she wanted to sit was important. It bothered her. He was so stupid, she thought.

“Sure. Sit... Yeah.”

Adashino nodded to her, oblivious to how she scowled as she answered or perhaps ignoring it, and gestured towards a set of benches at the edge of the concourse they walked. Though she did not want to admit it aloud, Akiyo was grateful for the offer and sunk down into the bench she chose a bit too heavily to pretend otherwise. _Mushi_ scattered as she sat herself and closed her eyes, losing herself to the soft hums.

After a long moment of silence, she heard a voice beside her: “Stop frowning, please. I can almost _hear_ your expression. You could curdle milk with it, I bet.”

The girl opened her eyes to find the doctor sitting beside her, with space between them that she was grateful for. But she still thought he was dumb, especially with how his eyebrows pinched in concern.

Akiyo flinched and turned her head away. She thought about how she’d been told to be honest, how he told her that her experience was important to voice the evening before. She thought about how he had never belittled her for her opinion, even when he laughed, nor did Ginko. The both of them listened to her sincerely when she spoke, and so for the moment she decided to be honest:

“It’s stupid,” Akiyo allowed herself to mumble. “The… how you speak like you mean every word you say.”

Adashino smiled at this, just a small tick of his lips. “I do, Akiyo. I can’t hope for honest if I don’t offer it first.” He paused. “You think a lot of things are stupid, have you noticed that? Have you ever tried to find another word?” 

Akiyo sighed and closed her eyes again, trying to pretend the doctor wasn’t beside her as she slouched down into the bench. She wished she could dissolve into the floor-- nearly anything was better than standing in the middle of the floor and listening to this fish-sweatered doctor try to offer her advice. She had several hours of that every day, with other _worse_ doctors, and she was beyond done with it. 

“I mean it, just as I mean all things,” Adashino continued, voice soft. “That’s a key part of a lot of the therapy here, if you’d been listening. You force a positive feeling on yourself, or at least _entertain_ the idea of one, rather than allowing the negative one to take root. And then eventually you end up re-wiring the way you think so that the process is automatic, if you do it enough.”

“You’re not my doctor,” Akiyo scowled at him, opening her eyes to give him a sideways glare. She didn’t want his advice. She wasn’t even supposed to be in this place, anyway.

“No, but you called my sweater stupid and I’d rather you didn’t do that. So let’s find another word for it, hm?”

She stopped in her tracks-- had she said that _out loud_? More importantly, _when_ had she said that? “You can’t even see it,” she mumbled instead, face burning with shame.

“But I know what it looks like,” the doctor insisted, stopping beside her. “It has these little fish on the bottom, and along the sleeves. There’s also little bubbles. I think it’s quite charming. A patient gave it to me.”

Akiyo looked at the floor, cheeks on fire. Dr. Adashino was a full-grown man, defending a knit sweater with _charming_ fish on it, and she just wanted him to shut up for a moment. The exercise felt more pointless than any other conversation she could possibly have with him. She sighed. “I’m sorry I called your sweater stupid. It’s...” Akiyo traced the lines of the embroidered fish with her eyes, doing her best to play his game so he would be quiet. “It’s unique,” she decided.

Adashino looked satisfied with her answer, lips curling pulling into a smile. “I accept your apology,” he nodded, “and your re-evaluation of my sweater. But I still insist you try thinking about things in other ways. I really do. It does help.”

Somehow, all of this was far less exciting than she had thought it was going to be. Akiyo wondered if whatever Ginko was doing was more exciting-- it probably was. He looked like he had many exciting things happen to him. She wished she could outrun Dr. Adashino, but she was stuck with him and wished desperately she was elsewhere. She sighed. “Cool.”

“Not particularly,” Adashino replied, but he spoke more to the air than to her. She could hear it in her voice. “But it’s a start.”

Sighing, Akiyo traced her eyes along the murals of the wall and avoided looking over at the doctor, pausing whenever she saw a little _mushi_ floating by and trying to school her breathing. None of them looked like the unusual ones Ginko had told her to watch for.

“Hey,” she found herself mumbling, “how long--” She’d been about to continue, turning back to the doctor to ask him a question she’d promptly forgotten, but a colour out of the corner of her eye gave her pause.

Akiyo stood. “I’m going that way,” she announced, and began limping across the corridor, fatigue left behind as she clung to her IV stand. her walking boot clunked hard as she attempted to skip, feet wobbly.

“Oh yes, _that way_ ,” the doctor answered after her, voice echoing across the concourse. She heard his footsteps behind her. “A direction with which I’m very familiar. Please, don’t clarify any further, I _insist_.”

She ignored him, glowering despite how she knew he couldn’t see-- nor did she turn back to check that he was following her pace. Her IV stand rattled as she limped her way across the floor, chasing the blur in her vision.

Everything was reduced to a tunnel in front of her, her ears howling with the beat of her own heart.

She knew what she’d seen, and how it made her pulse drop into her stomach.

Akiyo’s fell into it far sooner than she’d expected.

In front of her was a long hallway, painted a soft, blush pink, metal plates set into the walls and offering directions in block print. Akiyo swallowed hard as her eyes traced their outlines, and the outline of something she was _sure_ wasn’t supposed to be there. At the end of the hall a set of darkened double doors.

Something tapped her booted ankle gently, and it was only when a shadow fell over her did she realise Adashino had come to stand beside her. He said nothing, only stood at her shoulder, waiting for her. Akiyo swallowed, collecting her words.

“It’s… everywhere.”

Admittedly, they weren’t her _best_ words.

And yet, the doctor didn’t seem to find her statement funny. He hummed in consideration, tapping his fingers absently against the side of his cane. “Everywhere,” he repeated.

She nodded, and then realised he probably couldn’t tell she’d done so. She felt stupid for the mistake, and looked down at the floor. It offered a reprieve from the sight before her, the way everything seemed to wobble.

“Describe what it looks like to me, if you can. Is it dark, or light, or in between?”

She tilted her head up at the doctor as he spoke, but came to find he wasn’t looking back at her-- rather, he was staring straight down the hallway, as though he too might be able to see something there.

“Dark, or light?” He repeated softly. His voice was so even, Akiyo knew he had no idea what stood before them.

Her mouth was dry as she answered, one syllable: “Dark.” 

He nodded. “Is it on the walls, or the ceiling? In the air? Does it float?”

Someone passed them by, jostling Akiyo’s IV stand as they passed. She clung to it and wavered, shaking her head and ignoring their apology as they carried on. “Walls… walls. It’s on the walls.” The person continued through them as though nothing was amiss.

And yet around them something that no amount of even words, soft smiles, or patient waiting could make her feel at ease with. It was the colour of rust, and yet at once it was also the colour of the sky when night fell. It was no colour at all, the absence of anything and the presence of everything at once. It wrapped like ivy across the walls, making its home across the sections of pink paint. It moved and shifted, like it was _alive_ , like it was _breathing_ , pressing along the corridor like poison and curling across the surface as though it belonged there. There was an overwhelming feeling of horror that pressed against her lungs, made a home under her skin, pulled at her legs and urged her to turn around. Akiyo found herself unable to reconcile the calmness Ginko had held in his voice as he’d described what it was with what was in front of her-- it seemed more benign in her memories. It had seemed far more harmless in his words.

A hand pressing into her shoulder steadied her, and Akiyo realised that she hadn’t been breathing. “Would you like to go further, or would you like to go back? Are you stopping because you’re afraid? That’s alright if you are. Or are you feeling something else, perhaps?”

For a moment, the hallway spun in front of her. She wasn’t sure, as she tried to picture herself walking down the hall, that she wouldn’t become overwhelmed should she do so. That the darkness in front of her wouldn’t swallow her whole. Suddenly, everything seemed far more real than it had ever been before.

“You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to. We can do things at your pace, Akiyo, and only yours. You don’t have to walk a step further than you want to right now.”

Akiyo had thought the evening before that she could help with this, that somehow it might be an adventure. That she too could catalogue these _mushi_ and make peace with them the way Ginko had seemed to, that she might learn them and lead them and follow. But her knees shook, as the decay threatened her from where it hung, and her eyes were watering despite how she wanted them not to, her vision clouding over.

Fingers on her shoulder, pressing softly into her shirt, made her reconsider the waver in her legs. She thought about how she’d been told to be honest, and how not once had this doctor belittled her when she was. How he offered her nothing but sincerity, and how he spoke to her not in a patronizing tone, but in the tone he used with other adults around him. She felt she could trust him, and the thought made her want to be angry. That this stupid doctor, in his stupid sweater with stupid fish on it, was the only person onto whom she could cling for purchase-- and he asked nothing in return save her honesty. He only stood, solid, patient, a small smile on his face.

Akiyo knew then what her answer would be.

“I’m… I’m afraid.” She thought of Ginko, and the certainty in her stare. Of the solid _click, click,_ of Adashino’s white cane as he had walked beside her. Of the trust that had been given to her, the trust she wanted to return. “I’m afraid, but I want to go look. Is that... is that bad?”

Adashino shook his head. “No, Akiyo, not at all.” He spoke with a strange sadness in his voice, as though perhaps he weren’t talking about what was in front of them, but something else entirely. “It’s incredibly, stubbornly human.”

🩺

Ginko sighed and slouched lower into the bench, eye tracing the wilting trees outside the unit. He pulled the last of his cigarette to his lips and took a deep breath, wondering how long he could keep doing this.

He wondered if being allowed to smoke inside would make any difference about how he felt. He doubted so.

There was something soothing about having Adashino’s staff ID card tucked in his back pocket, just beside his pack of cigarettes, but it wasn’t enough to chase the ghosts of every other hospital he’d been in, nor was the last breath of tobacco in his lungs. It did little against every other care ward, every set of locked doors that had ever stood between himself and where he had wanted to be. He wished it could, and he wished the colourful murals could set this place apart from all the others, but after so many hours under bleaching lights it simply wasn’t enough.

He hoped desperately Akiyo would not feel the same when she left. 

Ginko stretched and stood, extinguishing his cigarette in a nearby outdoor ashtray, and made his way back to the staff doors. It was a short walk from there to Adashino’s office, the only other place in the hospital he found offered a small feeling of relief. 

“Oh, good, you’re back.” Adashino smiled from the other side of the room-- seated in one of the plush chairs, the man was folding some of the coloured blankets back into an equally-bright basket.

Ginko frowned, tilting his head as he clicked the office door shut. “How did you know it was me? I didn’t say anything.”

Adashino laughed. “I had just planned on saying it to anyone who walked into my office until it was you. There were two residents who came by before you, and I think I confused them terribly.”

“You take residents?”

Adashino shook his head and set the blanket aside. “No, but some of their Attendings use them like couriers instead of actual doctors,” he sighed. “I always hated that, being sent around like some paperboy.” 

There was a grimace that passed on Adashino’s face, only for half a moment, but it sent Ginko back in time nearly a decade and he did his best to keep from reeling: He saw the other man slouched in a chair, hidden in the shadow of the door, sleeping with a tray of empty coffee cups on the floor beside him, stained papers and charts under the pile. Ginko could nearly hear the beeping of the IV machine to his own right, feel the way the hospital blankets itched on his own skin and how cold the room was. He couldn’t remember if it was day or night. His leg hurt, and his foot was numb. His head ached something terrible. He twitched.

Adashino gestured to the chair across from him and the moment was broken. “Anyway, what did you find?”

Ginko shrugged and crossed the room, sinking into the chair without protest and leaving the thoughts behind him like shattered glass. “Nothing incredibly unusual down in Imaging, but the few strange things I saw I ended up following back up here.”

He hated following people and not being forward with his intentions, but the last two hours he’d gotten rather good at following people around under the guise of being lost. There were many _mushi_ in this hospital, but none of them were _truly_ out of place-- at least none of the ones that he’d been able to notice. 

There had been two patients, however, that he’d been able to follow out of the radiology unit earlier: both had some _fuki_ clinging to their clothing, and both had returned with a support worker to the psychiatric inpatient wards after their diagnostics had been done. Ginko hadn’t followed either beyond the double doors, despite having Adashino’s staff pass, but he had taken note of their appearances and the times they’d been down in radiology. He hoped he could give that to Adashino in order to be able to identify them by name, later.

His friend pondered his story, eyebrows pinching, chin nodding as he processed it. “Maybe it’s sad, but I’m at least glad to know this unit is the epicentre,” he conceded. “It makes it easy for us to keep an eye on it, anyway.” 

Ginko couldn’t find it in him to nod, so he merely tilted his head and stared at the tops of the buildings outside, clear and looming through the wide windows of Adashino’s office. “Did Akiyo find anything?”

“She found my sweater stupid,” Adashino pouted, slouching down in his chair.

"It _is_ stupid,” the mushi-shi told him flatly. “Wearing a collared shirt under it doesn’t fix that, I said as much this morning. Did Akiyo find anything _unexpected?_ ” He clarified.

The doctor stuck his lower lip out, feigning upset in a very childish way. “Whatever. Akiyo’s doing fine, her parents stopped by and she has an individual therapy session in an hour so we’ll have to visit her later.” He turned his eyes back to Ginko-- for all they were unable to make out clearly, the stare was incredibly sharp. “She did see something that lines up with what you expected, though.”

“Oh?”

Adashino nodded. “There’s a lot of that _fuki_ stuff along the walls leading down to the Pink unit-- ah, Mood Disorders 1 unit, apparently,” he grinned as he corrected himself, as though this was a good finding. “Do you suppose I could keep some of it for myself, in a jar?”

“Don’t,” Ginko admonished, “you invited me here to get _rid_ of it.”

The doctor slouched down in his chair again, but nodded at his friend. “Fine. Anyway, we were able to find seven affected patients in that unit, but Akiyo said two of them were maybe not really _infected--_ had just been near people who had been, and had picked it up. She said it was only on their clothes. There was a lot around the Purple--Concurrent Disorder--unit as well, but no affected patients.”

“Interesting,” Ginko considered, though the word was absently spoken. He wondered if it meant the source was _in_ the unit itself, or if it had started somewhere else and merely taken off because of the conditions in the area. “Mood Disorders 1 houses... what sort of patients?” There were many _mushi_ that fed off of emotion, especially rampant emotion... but only so many of them led to _fuki_ and only so many of those could overlap with the environment, if the cause was organic. And some that led to _fuki_ fed from specific feelings, as well, some which may not be found in high amounts in the unit.

“Mostly people dealing with depressive disorders,” Adashino considered, “or disorders with depressive symptoms, amongst others. There’s more than that, though. It's a bit of a mixed unit some months.” 

Ginko considered-- this narrowed the window down a fair amount, but not enough. He wondered if he should start looking around the unit himself to see what it was that could possibly draw the _mushi_ to it.

And yet he trusted Akiyo’s judgement enough to spare himself another trip into the locked ward just yet-- and perhaps part of it was his own general apprehension, though he would never admit so.

“Is there anything that unit and Concurrent have in common? Spatially, I mean.”

Adashino was silent for a long moment, frowning down at the floor. “Not particularly,” he said slowly. “On occasion we move patients from MD1 down to Concurrent, but the only thing between the actual _units_ here is a shared wall. The units themselves don’t overlap at all, or share a hall the way MD 1 and MD 2 do.”

“So…” A shared wall. “Ventilation?”

“Yes,” the doctor admitted, “but it’s not anything that wouldn’t also be shared with other units on the same floor, or even other floors. Same with the plumbing and electrical.”

Ginko considered this. “What about programs?” Perhaps the _mushi_ existed in a single room, and only certain patients were picking it up and bringing it back to their unit.

Adashino tapped his chin with a finger, eyebrows pinching. “There are a few overlapping programs, yes, but all the patients are separated between wards and take the programs at different times…” 

“Same room?”

“No,” his friend shook his head.

He was hesitant, but there was a sinking feeling in his gut that he was getting closer to the answer. It was held nearly between his fingers, he knew. “What about the material?”

At that, Adashino nodded. “Oh, yes, the curriculum are all the same, or very similar.”

Ginko frowned. The programs were similar between the units, but nothing else-- unless he was missing something. They didn’t share a room between wards. There was also very little that would explain why a handful of patients were affected by the _fuki,_ but not all those within a given space-- there would be more than 7 of them. The affliction wasn’t consistent enough to be organic, spontaneous… if it was, even more patients would be affected superficially, he reasoned. This would have to be either something incredibly specific causing it, or something… deliberate.

And the only other thing that could possibly be shared enough between two separate parts of a closed ward, in a speciality department…

“Are most of the sessions led or attended by the same staff members?”

At that, Adashino’s face went pale. 

Ginko felt his heart drop into his stomach at the wordless conclusion, his entire body lurching with the same shock Adashino had written all over his face, though he had given himself a handful of seconds to work through the feeling in advance. “It’s very possible that...” he stopped himself. Adashino already knew.

The doctor put his face into his hands, dropping his chin so that all Ginko might see was the crown of his dark hair. When he spoke at last, it was still muffled by his fingers, voice drawn, tone tired. Exhausted. “I’ll give a call down to scheduling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🩺 [fewer than 2% of visually impaired people in North America use the traditional "white cane" to navigate](https://dsb.wa.gov/resources/blind-awareness/dispelling-myths)\-- many use guide dogs, and many still use nothing at all. Many folks use the cane for the benefit of others, as well, rather than actual navigation  
> 🩺 Useful resources from national institutes and federations for the blind and visually impaired can be found here (clickable links) :[ ENGLISH ](https://www.nfb.org) //[ FRANÇAIS ](https://www.cnib.ca/fr) // [ DEUTSCH ](www.dbsv.org)
> 
> 🩺 [ I HAVE AN ART OF ADASHINO IN FISH SWEATER CLICK HERE PLEASE BEHOLD IT ](https://eggbreadboi.tumblr.com/post/640768354175664128/jaxtonstrash-this-was-supposed-to-be-a-colored)~~If anyone has art skills I'd pay actual real money to have a drawing of Adashino in an ugly fish sweater, if you think you could do this for me hmu~~[ by clicking right here](https://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com) I'd be eternally grateful  
> 


	4. All Odds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Occam's Razor:_ The simplest explanation — that is, the solution that requires the fewest assumptions — is preferable over others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ I HAVE AN ART OF ADASHINO IN FISH SWEATER FROM LAST CHAPTER CLICK HERE PLEASE BEHOLD IT IM SO HONOURED ](https://eggbreadboi.tumblr.com/post/640768354175664128/jaxtonstrash-this-was-supposed-to-be-a-colored)

Adashino _did_ snore. Though it was a familiar thing that Ginko had been prepared for since before he’d even stepped onto the train to Fukoka, it was still enough to force the man up long before dawn the next morning, staggering into the kitchen in a daze as he dressed for the day.

He was so used to sleeping alone, and the silence and cold that came with it, that having another person next to him felt nearly stifling in all of its sudden comfort.

The overwhelming feeling fled from Ginko’s shoulders as he stepped out onto the patio of the flat, shivering as the winter air reminded him of the season. He allowed himself a cigarette on the patio without a jacket only because the cigarette was a comfort he offered himself and not one that he needed in that moment. Not like the ones at the hospital. 

Ginko went back inside after finishing half of it, bare toes cold as he stepped into slippers.

“Tea…” he considered out loud, though to whom he hadn’t a clue. His throat was raspy-- cold, sleep, the cigarette and the weight in his chest that wouldn’t leave may all have been part of the source. Ginko shuffled into Adashino’s kitchen and clicked on the light, the fluorescence shocking what vestiges of tiredness had been clinging to him.

Ginko clicked the electric kettle on and grabbed the first tea he was able to find in the cupboards-- it smelled like _wakoucha_ but he couldn’t be sure. There were several tins at the back of the cupboard, but everything was labelled with tactile strips of _Tenji_ he couldn’t read. He shrugged and settled for whatever it was he ended up with.

He settled himself at the kitchen table, facing the pile of strewn papers he’d abandoned the night before.

There were two-dozen different lists of timetables, staff clock-ins, group schedules and participants, and key-card sign-ins from the psychiatric ward, all of which were beginning to blur together the longer Ginko stared at them. Some things overlapped, and other things didn’t touch at all. He was starting to wonder if he had perhaps connected pieces that didn’t really exist. But his gut told him that they did,even if he couldn't see it yet, and so the mushi-shi pressed on.

He considered how many other mysteries like these he had figured before, and it was enough to convince himself to keep working. He had to trust his own heart, the feeling deep in his stomach that told him there was a pattern. After all, that feeling had to come from somewhere.

He only stopped pouring over the pages when the sound of muffled curses and a heavy _thunk_ in the other room allowed his concentration to slip. Ginko realised dimly that Adashino was awake, and frowned over at the hall. The doctor appeared in the doorframe a few moments following, a loose yukata draped over himself and tied with an obi that looked like it had been knotted by a toddler. His hair stood up at terrible angles, and his expression was that of a man who had already given up for the day.

“Hey,” Ginko said, looking up from the papers. He wasn’t sure how awake the other man was, or if he had even noticed that Ginko hadn’t been in the other room.

His words were answered with an exasperated sigh. “ _Why_ did you leave your bag in the middle of the floor?” Adashino leaned on the doorframe and rubbed his face, eyebrows pinched heavily.

Ginko winced. _That explains the cursing_ , _then._

“Sorry,” he said, sincere in his apology. His chest felt heavy with his mistake. He looked back down at his papers to distract himself. “Keeps you on your toes, right?”

“It did quite the opposite, thank you,” Adashino complained, but the anger and exasperation from his earlier announcement was gone. He shuffled fully into the kitchen, one hand still over his face as he rubbed at his eyes. “And now I’m afraid I’ll find all my furniture moved five centimetres to the left.”

“Haven’t had time for that,” Ginko smiled thinly. It was an idea, certainly, but he wasn’t that cruel. Adashino already had enough to deal with in absence of him migrating the floor layout. His home was the one place that should be safe from troubles like that, at least.

“Hm,” Adashino responded, hands fishing around on the counter for all the things Ginko had been too afraid to touch: coffee beans, the grinder, the glass pour-over... The mushi-shi watched as his friend retrieved another kettle--not electric--shook it to feel the weight, and then began filling it under the sink.

“You’re up early,” the doctor said absently, turning the faucet off and sticking his entire hand inside the kettle. Ginko frowned, unsure of exactly what he was doing, but didn’t interrupt. “Did you sleep okay? Would you like coffee today?”

“Fine… I slept fine,” he mumbled, still perplexed at what exactly his friend was doing but unable to bring himself to ask. "Coffee would be nice." He just stared instead, eyebrow cocked.

Adashino took his hand out of the kettle, filled it a bit more, and then placed it on the stove. After fiddling for a moment, he turned the burner on--the dial being at the front of the range marked with tactile strips, like everything else, made sense suddenly to Ginko--and turned back to the mushi-shi. “I lost my liquid leveller,” Adashino announced, as though he knew the way his friend looked at him from across the room.

“Oh,” Ginko said, nodding as though he understood. He didn’t understand.

“The thing I put on the rim of my cup,” Adashino explained tiredly, miming with his hands the action of a clip. “You hate it. It beeps if it touches water, so I know to stop pouring?” He sighed, slouching back against the counter. “Anyway, it went missing. I have to use my hand like some peasant from the 1800s.”  
“Most of your possessions beep,” Ginko answered gently, although as his friend explained he did know exactly the device Adashino described. He turned back down to the papers in front of him. “How many times have you burnt yourself since?"

Adashino laughed. “Only three.” He grinned, but it was sarcastic. “You see, I’ve learned that if I measure the water _before_ you boil it, I don’t end up burning my hand.”

“Genius,” the mushi-shi offered, watching as his friend fiddled with his obi absently. “You realise you could buy a new one. You know, like the phone you said was a replaceable object.”

“Ah, but that’s a simple answer.” Adashino’s smile was sharp. "Why would I ever do that? _Keeps me on my toes,_ ” he parroted.

Ginko shook his head as Adashino turned back to the counter, finishing his coffee preparation as the kettle over the stove started to whistle. His friend could be incredibly agreeable or incredibly contrary, but after all the years of knowing him Ginko still couldn’t figure out a pattern behind it. He seemed to do most things spontaneously, though at a brief glance he could come across as an incredibly organized person. Or other times, he seemed to be completely moronic, only for Ginko to realise after the fact that everything was carefully planned.

As though proving his point, Adashino set his kettle directly onto the surface of the counter; Ginko winced openly at the action. But the counter was fine, a material made for such a thing by design, and let the kettle sit quietly atop it before the doctor picked it up and began pouring his coffee.

The mushi-shi had about half a minute of silence, the smell of coffee filling the kitchen, before he heard Adashino hiss and step back from the counter sharply.

“Four,” Ginko offered absently. He flipped over a time-table of staff scheduled on the MD1 unit a week previous, scanning clock-ins and looking for overlaps with the time-table for 3 seperate group therapies that same day. He felt like he was close to the answer he was looking for. _Something_ was in these papers.

Adashino sighed and seated himself at the table, a burnt ring finger in his mouth as he set his coffee down. “I put a roof over your head and all you do is mock me.” He took his finger out of his mouth and grimaced. "Make your own coffee now, I quit."

“You _offered_ to have me stay over freely. And cold water works best for burns, not saliva.”

Adashino slouched down in his chair and placed his cheek in his free hand, elbow on the table. “I know, I went to medical school,” he tried, but it came out defeated. He took a slow sip from his coffee, grimacing as he brought the mug to his mouth. 

Ginko raised an eyebrow and said nothing on the subject, standing from the table to retrieve the cup Adashino had poured for him and left behind. It was too full, and half the coffee had ended up on the counter-- he wiped the spill up before sitting down again.

Quietly Ginko pulled the lines of schedules back in front of himself, frowning. An hour of the task had yielded nothing discriminating, but he couldn’t convince himself to give up. At the least, he thought he had 10 potential members of staff to look at in detail, which was better than the original list of over 40. There were 5 strong candidates out of those 10, but three weeks’ worth of scheduling was all blurring together and Ginko couldn’t recall on what grounds he’d set them apart.

It was perhaps as though his friend knew what troubled him, when at last the silence was broken: “I was thinking last night.” The doctor mumbled into his mug as he spoke, still slouched. “About some of the patients. Did we ever think about _why_ they were chosen, rather than by whom?”

“Hm?” This made Ginko look up from the page he’d been staring at.

“Well, I just thought your list was really long when I’d printed it for you-- what if we could figure out the motive for this? Would that narrow it more?” He chewed his lip, and his face grew serious.

“Sorry, come again?” His heart sunk at the thought that all his timetable work had been for nothing, but further still when he considered that maybe the _mushi_ he was looking for _hadn’t_ originated in the department.

Adashino took another sip from his coffee and straightened his posture. “It’s not what you think. I just mean-- if we could figure out _why_ the person was infecting patients with _mushi,_ would it not stand to reason we could figure out who they’d target next? And if we knew the motive, we could eliminate staff who wouldn't have that sort of motive?”

Ginko frowned. “I’d like to insult you, but I’m not sure what to say.”

Adashino grinned at this, taking another sip of his coffee. “You’re offended by my genius?”

The mushi-shi looked back down at the stack of papers in front of himself, sinking lower into his chair. “It can’t be so simple.”

Out of the corner of his eye Ginko watched Adashino take another drink of his cup, too slow to be anything besides a way to occupy his hands-- and by the sound of the mug on the table when he set it down again it was quite empty. His voice was barely above a whisper when he spoke: “Is there a miracle _mushi_ , Ginko?”

There was a chill running down his spine, and it had very little to do with the temperature in Adashino’s flat. He considered his list of 10 staff, the list of 5, and the 7 patients. “No.” He swallowed, worry pressing hard against his throat. He thought of _mushi_ that could restore sight, but that granted vision that was enough to drive one mad. He thought of _mushi_ that could let a man come back from the dead, but only for a single night. He thought of _mushi_ that could grant immortality, in exchange of sanity and the soul. “No. But I can think of many that can be taken as such.”

He pushed the stack of papers to the side, staring at them as long as he could bring himself to. It hurt his head and his heart, cases like these, when mercy inadvertently turned to malice. 

“I need to look around again,” he eventually decided. “Let’s go back to the hospital.”

  
  


🏥

  
  


Akiyo slouched lower in her wheelchair, wanting to disappear into her soft collar and sink into the floor if she could. She hated Group, almost as much as she hated one-on-one therapies, and having to sit through another hour of this was going to make her skin crawl.

The therapist who led the group was nice, but Akiyo didn’t want to talk to anyone else. She didn’t know any of these other patients--all around her own age--dressed in pajamas or scrubs and wearing oversized hospital socks like her own. She wasn’t going to be here forever, after all, and she wasn’t even supposed to be in this place in the first place. What was the point in meeting any of them?

And they all seemed to look at her the same way too, with the deep circles under their eyes mirroring the discomfort she felt in her own stare.

Akiyo had never felt more like crawling out of her skin than in that moment: surrounded by strangers she was supposed to find familiar, locked into a room with no windows. Not even the bright murals made it seem palatable. 

She felt incredibly alone.

She jumped as a hand landed on her shoulder, the one not wrapped by the sling, and Akiyo sat up straight in her wheelchair in alarm. It was only when she saw a familiar silhouette pass by her, the click of a cane accompanying it, and turned to see a green eye looking back at her, that she allowed herself to relax.

“It hasn’t even started and you’re half-asleep.” Ginko looked down at her, chewing something between his back teeth as he offered a small smile. She wanted to say it was a lollipop, but why would a grown man be chewing a lollipop?

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she scowled, feeling her ears turn red.

“I see,” the man answered. He sat down in a folding chair that was beside her, one of many laid out in a circle in the room, and tilted his chin towards her. “You’ve been keeping busy, though?”

Akiyo managed a half-shrug, her shoulder pinching. More than anything, she felt tired after doing anything at all, and it was difficult to put to words. “I still hate it here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Ginko took the stick out of his mouth, humming. Akiyo’s eyebrows went up as she realised it was, indeed, a lollipop that he was chewing on. “I asked if you were keeping busy. I suppose you probably meant to say that you’re not.”

She considered, staring at the red lolly Ginko held. “I’m not, no.” She admitted. It was probably why she was in this room, if she wanted to acknowledge that a step further. Her mind was running away with her on a regular basis. But she didn’t say as much out loud-- it just made her angry. Instead, she frowned up at Ginko. “Why are _you_ here?’

He put the lollipop back in his mouth and offered her a shrug of his own. “Investigating, filling in some gaps. I have a lot of questions that need answers.” His eye was across the room as he spoke, looking at his friend.

Akiyo followed Ginko’s line of sight and frowned at Adashino, who had taken a seat across the circle from her. He was chatting animatedly to another patient-- some kid with hair far too long, half of it hanging in their face. There was another one nearby who was listening, head tilted awkwardly.

She scowled again. “What’s _he_ doing here?”

“Bothering me,” Ginko answered, sighing. The strange part was how he didn’t sound annoyed at all, but Akiyo didn’t comment on it.

She frowned at the doctor from across the room, and how easily he spoke with the two kids on either side of him. Akiyo wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but she’d been casually watching the both of them before Adashino had walked over, and they’d been slouched in their chairs just as she had. And yet as they spoke with the doctor--the _doctor_ , she frowned--they were both grinning and gesturing, speaking with him as though he might be someone they knew well. 

It was only after a moment she noticed one of them had purple clinging to his hospital socks, the shadow of it dripping across the floor.

Her stomach lurched.

“Don’t punch anyone this time,” Ginko said softly. Akiyo winced-- she knew he could see her emotion plainly on her face. “He’s fine. We’ll figure this out.”

The girl balled her hands into fists, opening and closing her fingers to try to ease the tension in her spine. It was strange, knowing she could see these things and they couldn’t. Knowing it could very well hurt them, and they hadn’t a clue. That their reality was incredibly different from hers.

“They probably feel the same way,” the mushi-shi said, leaning back in his chair. His voice was even, low. “Some of them hear or see things you can’t, either. It’s just as terrifying to them, you know.”

Akiyo winced. “I said that out loud again.” She thought about the fish sweater. 

Today, Adashino was wearing a grey shirt with a black tie. At least she didn’t have to worry about _that_.

Ginko nodded. “Don’t worry about it. Just worry about your lesson for the moment-- everything else will follow.”

“How?” He made it all sound so easy.

Ginko twirled the lollipop stick between his fingers, pulling it from between his teeth again. “That’s what the lesson is for. You have to put your trust in something, eventually-- you should start by trying with this.” 

Maybe it was her body language, or maybe it was the way Ginko seemed to be able to look through her even without that, but Akiyo knew in that moment that he saw her discomfort. Wholly and plainly, as though she’d given him a ledger of every thought in her head. He understood _exactly_ what she felt. And he didn’t speak from a place of pretension, nor did he seem to be speaking in blind faith some others did. He spoke from a place of sincerity, of gravity. His words had _weight_ to them, so much it nearly hurt her as she listened.

“You have to allow it to work, these kind of lessons,” Ginko added quietly. “You have to at least trust that they can. It’s pointless otherwise-- whether you believe in the therapy or think it’s stupid, you’ll end up being right.” He sighed, almost to himself, and stuck the lolly back in his mouth. “Wasting time is entirely up to you.” He shrugged. “Your doctors put you here because they believe you could benefit from it. You should try to think you could, too.”

Akiyo looked across the room again, to Adashino and the two patients he was speaking with. One was playing something on their phone, the audio no more than a distant tinkling from where she sat. She watched a _mushi_ float in front of the trio, considering the trust Adashino and Ginko had placed in her earlier. She thought about how small she was, how young, and how many more years she had ahead of her-- how many would be wasted simply because she would be afraid, or stubborn? In this place where each minute felt like an hour, thinking of years was nearly too much. She couldn’t imagine it at all.

“Adashino said this one was MCT-based,” Ginko went on. Akiyo jumped at his voice, not having expected it. “For what it’s worth, _I_ think it would be good for you. I thought it might be good for me, too.”

She frowned up at him, tearing her eyes away from Adashino and putting them back on the white-haired man beside her. “I thought you were here to investigate.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But if I’m locked in here for now, I’d like to have something to show for it when I leave. You understand?”

Akiyo traced the outline of his eye, how serious his stare was, and allowed herself to nod. Perhaps, in that moment, she was beginning to understand.

  
  


🏥

  
  


Ginko paced outside Adashino’s office, frowning at the _I am busy! :) Thank you for waiting!_ Sign that was taped to the door. It was in large print on a yellow sheet of paper, and Ginko was starting to think that though it looked like it was meant for _general_ use, it was specifically designed for _him._ He couldn’t fathom Adashino was the type to not have the thing match his nameplate: finely gilded and transcribed in Tenji.

He tapped his fingers irritably against the empty paper cup he held-- at one point, like the day before, it had contained coffee. But it had been drained for so long that Ginko could hardly remember what it had tasted like anymore. He had considered disposing of it, but even the thought of something in his hand was too much of a comfort, and so he held onto it. The texture was a welcome familiarity, he told himself. 

Ginko paced another sixty paces, counting each one. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, louder than the ones in Adashino’s kitchen had ever been.

He hated hospitals. Even this one _._

 _Especially_ this one, now that he knew what it held.

Without warning, Adashino's door clicked open, and Ginko dropped his cup in surprise at the sound. It rolled across the floor and stopped at the feet of a young boy-- eight, maybe nine years old. The kid frowned down at it, stopped in the doorframe of Adashino’s office, and then slowly lifted his eyes to Ginko. 

He pointed down at the cup.

“I… I dropped that, yes. Thanks.” He still felt unsettled, but seeing another person, even a child, grounded him a bit more. “Would you mind if I picked it up?”

The kid took a step back, at which point he staggered into the legs of a woman Ginko could only assume was his grandmother: they had the same eyes, wide and bright, and even the same hairline. But where the boy’s hair was dark, the woman’s was grey, and the beginning of creases shaped every plain of her face.

“Shinra, don’t feel too shy-- I’m here. You can also say no if you want, even though he’s polite.”

The boy looked between the coffee cup in front of him and then back to Ginko, and then back to the cup.

“Sorry,” the woman said quietly, after several long moments where the kid just looked wordlessly down at the cup. She then stepped beside her grandson, into the doorframe. “Sorry, Shinra, I’ll pick it up for now, since it shouldn’t stay on the floor.” 

The older woman bent over and retrieved the empty cup, but made no move to either toss it back to Ginko nor hand it over. The mushi-shi stood awkwardly in the hall while she blocked the doorframe, grandson by her side and now completely ignoring the two of them-- he was fiddling with the strings on his hooded shirt, tying them and untying them together. There was a soft, _kouki-_ like light that clung to one of his hands, and Ginko couldn’t help but stare and wonder if the boy knew about it.

“Were you waiting to see doctor Nakada?”

The mushi-shi frowned at the name as the woman spoke to him, before he realised she meant Adashino. “Yes,” he said slowly, not sure what else he owed her. He peeled his eye away from the boy’s hand, nodding his head mechanically.

She nodded. “Of course, my apologies. We’ll be on our way.”

She was halfway down the hall before Ginko realised she’d left with his cup. His fingers tapped empty air, and he opened his mouth to call out to her, but closed it when he realised it was pointless.

He considered the lollipop that Adashino had handed him that morning, and suddenly wished he’d asked for a second.

 _Here,_ the doctor had said, _in case you need something to fidget with._ He had said it almost absently, but in the silence between his words Ginko knew the man cared. That he knew everything Ginko didn’t tell him.

“Maybe next time,” he scolded himself. He thought maybe he’d try a lemon flavour then-- the cherry had been too sweet.

Sighing, the mushi-shi stepped into Adashino’s office. He pulled the printed paper down from the door as he entered, the sign ripping and leaving some tape and half the syllables dangling behind

“Hey,” Ginko announced himself, closing the door with a click as he entered. Stepping into the room was a strange relief, and he wasn’t sure if it was the familiarity of his friend where he sat on the floor, or the fact that there was a carpet under his shoes for once that made the difference.

Adashino looked up from where he sat on said carpet, in his expensive slacks and crisp button-up, cross-legged in front of one of the plush chairs. _Criss-cross applesauce,_ he’d once said in English, delighted one of his patients had taught him the phrase. Ginko could only roll his eye. Adashino’s lap held his tablet, but this was set aside as the doctor grinned over to his friend and devoted his full attention. “Did my detective work help you?”

Ginko could only smile at his expression, so hopeful in the way that he normally would only expect from a child. And yet, with so much weight sitting tight in his chest, Ginko could hardly allow his smile to reach his eye. “It might be nicer if it hadn’t,” he said honestly.

“Well, I tried.” Adashino shrugged. Then, tilting his head, the man nodded with his chin over to his desk. “Before you sit down, Tanyuu sent you a present from the pharmacy. It’s in the bottom left drawer of my desk.”

“Sure,” Ginko answered; he crossed the room and stepped around behind Adashino’s desk. It was strange being on the other side of it, tucked into the corner, but it didn’t feel any less welcoming than the rest of the room. A bit calmer, perhaps, with its lack of colours, but welcoming all the same.

He pulled the lowest drawer open and found inside it a paper bag, folded across the top and stapled shut. There was a small card stuck to it, addressed in calligraphy with his name and a _Take care of yourself_ label. There was a prescription print stapled under it, hidden courteously by the well-wishes.

“How’s Tanyuu doing, anyway?” Ginko pulled the bag out of the drawer, tucking it under his arm. The small boxes and vials inside jostled through the paper, a comfort the mushi-shi had not expected. He rolled his eye when he saw Adashino’s liquid leveller sitting at the bottom of the drawer, bright red and very clearly _not_ lost. He closed the drawer silently and said nothing of it. “Is she liking it here?” He couldn’t put to words how grateful he was for her _gift_ , so he asked the next closest thing.

Adashino, across the room, shrugged. “I suppose so. She keeps telling me you need to come by more often. I’m starting to think she doesn’t even like me-- she just keeps me around because it means you’ll eventually visit her.”

Ginko frowned down at the floor. He felt guilty about not setting aside more time to visit her, but his schedule wasn’t consistent. Nor was hers, but he knew that it wasn’t a good excuse. “So is this a bribe, then?” He held up the bag, despite knowing Adashino probably couldn’t see him doing so.

“No, she’s not like that and you know it.” The doctor almost laughed at the accusation. “But the extra syringes, maybe, since they’re the kind with the nice little threaded top for the needle.”

Ginko hummed. “She’s _not like that,_ huh?”

Adashino sat back on his hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then, more seriously, “you should call her, though. I understand I’m much more fun and far better-looking than her, but you owe her some time.”

The mushi-shi scoffed at his friend and made his way back across the room, the paper prescription bag under his arm. “Tomorrow,” he promised. He wanted to tag a jab at Adashino and all of his self-proclamations, but he held his tongue.

Ginko sat down in one of the plush chairs, setting the paper bag on his lap as he slouched down into the cushions. 

“Anyway, I had a thought.”

“Dangerous,” Adashino nodded, but very clearly registered the shift in tone. “Care to share?”

Ginko closed his eye and focussed on the feeling of the chair’s upholstery under his skin. His bare arms brushed the arm-rests, sinking into the fabric. The chair was like a cocoon, nearly, shaped like a tub-- he knew exactly why Adashino had them in his office. It wasn’t by mistake.

“The two patients you spoke to in Group, you said… you said something about them after that made me think.”

Adashino hummed, considering. “I said _several_ things about them. They’re both really nice kids. Gen-kun is a big fan of Kota-chan, Mame-chan, and Fuku-chan, for example.”

“Kota… chan?” Ginko repeated skeptically, opening his eye if only so he could frown down at his friend.

“Dogs,” Adashino said, entirely serious and as though there were no other possible answer. “Gen-kun likes the photos they post, but personally I prefer Tofu-chan the Shiba-- his videos are very positive, and his dialogue is very sweet. He’s an extremely clever dog.”

“Okay,” Ginko huffed. “You said something more important about the kid, though.”

“Kota-Mame-Fuku photos _are_ important!” Adashino protested. Then, after half a moment he deflated. “I did tell you he has diabetes, though. Gen-kun, not the dogs.”

Ginko didn’t bother asking why he would care if a dog had diabetes, nor why Adashino felt he had to clarify that point. “Sure. And his other friend--”

“Miharu-kun,” Adashino clarified, cutting him off.

“Miharu,” Ginko sighed. “You said he had something, too.”

“A very cool phone case,” the doctor grinned, very obviously ignoring the point. “It has little ridges on the back. Texture. I want one for me.”

Ginko frowned down at his friend pointedly, despite knowing Adashino could not see his expression. But he knew that the other man knew.

“Thalassemia,” he finally admitted. His smile had fallen. “I feel bad; it’s actually fairly common and simple to understand, but it’s so hard to pronounce he just gives up on explaining what it is.”

Ginko shrugged-- he wasn’t sure he understood what it was either, despite how Adashino had explained it to him earlier. “Right.” He tapped his chin with a finger absently, wishing again he either had a cigarette or one of the lollypops to hold. “Let’s say this person wasn’t using a _mushi_ to target them, and was just using modern medicine. Why would someone do that?”

Adashino considered his question heavily, frowning down at the carpet he sat on. “Normally people like that _treat_ those they think are suffering, don’t they? They think it’s their duty to intervene and relieve the person from their pain.”

The thought was sad. “Exactly.” He hated that idea, the more he thought about it. “But Gen and Miharu are completely fine, relatively speaking, right? They’re both managing their physical disorders just and doing better psychologically than they were when they first arrived?” 

“Yes, I would say so.”

“Which would make it unusual for a normal hospital-type predator to target them,” Ginko elaborated.

“This situation is anything but normal,” Adashino reminded him.

Ginko had to concede that, but it was precisely the point. “Which is what made me consider what’s really happening.”

The mushi-shi closed his eye and retraced his steps. He retraced Adashino’s, and Akiyo’s, and felt himself wince.

The 7 patients.The 5 staff. The 3 groups they attended. The three dozen things they did not share.

The one thing they did.

“I believe the _mushi_ being used is the _Kunō no tsuiseki-sha_.” He thought of the _fuki_ along the walls, along the blanched tiles. The _fuki_ that clung to scrubs, and the _fuki_ that clung to skin.

“How cheerful,” Adashino said. His words were thin.

“Hm,” Ginko agreed. 

He couldn’t find a way to articulate what had brought him to the conclusion-- perhaps one thing, perhaps a multitude. Something in the softness of Adashino’s question that morning, spoken over nearly-cold coffee, perhaps. The sadness in his voice as he’d asked about a miracle. The consideration that someone may make the same mistake he had, and take it a step further.

He opened his eye, at last looking over to his friend. “I think this person is trying to _help_ your patients,” he said, measuring each syllable. “They’re leading them to recovery, not to an _end._ They’re not intending to do harm. The culprit is naive, but not entirely foolish. They’re perhaps misguided.”

Adashino’s eyes went wide, his eyebrows going up. “Not _intending harm?_ ” He frowned almost immediately, lips drawing sharply down. “Ginko, they’ve infected half the MD unit with this toxic _sludge_ you keep insisting we have to remove! Two of the nurses were sent home after fainting today, and I’m not sure the incidents are unrelated.” He scowled. “How _isn’t_ this intentional? And it's getting _worse._ Naive-- please, be serious. This person must know what it is they’re doing.”

Ginko sighed. He felt his spine crack as he slouched, shoulders sinking. “It’s not what the staff has in common with the patients,” he began. “It’s what the patients have in common with each other, like you had said this morning. We’d missed it the first time.”

For once, Adashino was silent. He stared, brows pinched, waiting for his friend to go on.

It was strange, having their roles reversed. Ginko trying to trace his train of thought in a way the doctor could follow, so often was it the other way around. “The _Kunō no tsuiseki-sha_ produces _fuki_ as a by-product, not as a direct function. Most people never consider this when they observe or manipulate it. The _fuki_ is secondary, as it’s a breakdown of what the _Kunō-tsuiseki_ consumes. Consider its name. Consider your patients again. And consider the motive.”

Adashino’s mouth opened once, then closed again. He said nothing. Ginko thought of Akiyo, and how she’d looked at him the same way. Lost, for a moment, before meaning had been found.

“Do you understand?”

Adashino’s hands pressed over his mouth, his eyes wavering. “Oh good god,” Adashino whispered, and the word was barely more than a whisper. “This person is trying to cure their genetic disorders.”

Ginko smiled, but it was not one he was happy to give. He felt his ribs breaking one by one under the weight of each breath, the kindness and the anguish and the irresponsibility that lay bare beneath bleaching lights. The prescription bag in his lap felt impossibly heavy as he considered this. 

This person… whoever they were, they did _not_ understand.

“It’s okay,” the mushi-shi answered, despite how he wasn’t certain it was. “Like you said this morning: we know who they choose, and now we know why. And _I_ know how to draw the _Kunō-tsuiseki_ out.” He met his friend’s unseeing stare, in all its shock and concern. “Now all that’s left is to find who brought it here.”

Perhaps it could be so simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⚕️ _Wakoucha_ is black tea  
> ⚕️ [Here is a listing (clickthrough)](https://www.maxiaids.com/liquid-level-detector) to a liquid level detector, for anyone unfamiliar  
> ⚕️ MCT is short for Meta-cognitive Therapy.  It's a sort of therapy that involves changing how people think about things rather than what they are thinking about. Honestly I find it very helpful, myself.  
> ⚕️ Kota, Mame and Fuku are @kotamamefuku on Instagram, and Tofu-chan is @tofupupper
> 
> ⚕️ I have one or two small headcannons for this Modern AU stuffed into this chapter, [ come talk to me on tumblr](https://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com) or leave a comment below if you think you might know where I put them, or what they are... :D
> 
> ⚕️ As always, useful resources from national institutes and federations for the blind and visually impaired can be found here (clickable links) :[ ENGLISH ](https://www.nfb.org) //[ FRANÇAIS ](https://www.cnib.ca/fr) // [ DEUTSCH ](www.dbsv.org)


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